Life and Death

****UPDATE 4/30/10 Semi-related article in The Epoch Times ****

*****



So I almost didnt post this since it had been a while since the subject matter was relevant...but lo and behold, 7 am yesterday morning, I was blown yet again. Channel 4 news was reporting on a hit and run accident during rush hour. The reporter said we're trying to show you the accident without showing the victim since police have not removed the body. The camera pans to the truck that struck someone then pans down to avoid the body being shown. Then it pans back to the police, without titling down...and LINGERS ON THE GRISLY IMAGE OF THE VICTIM COVERED BY A WHITE SHEET LAYING DEAD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET.

SMDH (-_-) ...

In our ever-changing, increasingly technological world, we are invited via many outlets to share every aspect of our life. Our every internal thought can be displayed for not only our friends, family, and acquaintances, but even to the entire WORLD if we wish; via outlets like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace. Technology can even save lives, look at the millions of dollars donated via text messaging to the people of Haiti. This interconnectivity has undoubtedly advanced our world and connected us in many useful ways, but has it gone too far?


So I pose the question, is it now appropriate for us to share all aspects of our life…and death??


Our relatively new, celebrity-obsessed media culture has somehow made it a norm for every private aspects of a celebrity’s life to be broadcasted to the world. Too often in the past few years, these aspects have included the tragic deaths of these people as well. The incident that inspired me to write this blog happened last week, when Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died during a training run for the Vancouver Winter Olympics. I was on Huffington Post at work when I saw that there had been an accident at the Olympics. Like any curious person, I clicked on it and read the story and watched the horrifying video of the crash. Then I scrolled down the page to view photos of the incident and was absolutely mortified by what I saw. There were photos of Kumaritashvili as he lay bleeding and receiving medical attention which showed his ear hanging off of his head. Gross, I know, but it gets worse. The next day, I asked my sister if she heard about the luge incident and proceeded to show her the page. To my surprise, even more pictures had been added, one of a close-up view of Kumaritashvili’s face, bloodied and pale, with his eyes and mouth completely open, devoid of any signs of life. I was amazed that such a photo would be posted on a respectable site like Huffington Post.


Nodar Kumaritashvili was someone’s son, possibly someone’s brother, father, or husband. How dare the media post such morbid photos of him, likely without family permission, since the incident just happened. How disgusting that HP would post ADDITIONAL pictures of the tragedy! Even worse is that NBC repeatedly aired the violent crash several times.

Yes, NBC eventually prompted all its subsidiaries to cease showing the accident, but shouldn’t that judgment call have been made PRIOR to releasing the footage to every newsmedia outlet worldwide? Not one upper or even mid-level executive thought “maybe this is too much?” Or was the almighty dollar in the form of ratings dancing like sugarplums in their greedy little minds…

This of course is not a new thing; I recall in February 2007, when Anna Nicole Smith died of a drug overdose, CNN.com posted pictures of her being taken out to the ambulance from her hotel. She was on a stretcher and I distinctly remember the photos being zoomed in to show her face as paramedics attempted in vain to resuscitate her. I believe she was dead in this picture since the reports were that she was found unconscious, covered in vomit, and not breathing in bed. Then her bodyguard tried to do CPR, then the paramedics came and tried CPR in the room, then she was taken out to the stretcher, where they continued CPR and she was pronounced Dead on Arrival. Often when several attempts to revive someone fail, they were already dead when they were found. These stretcher pictures are not hard to find and the integrity of serious news channels should be questioned for showing her dead body.


Entertainment Tonight and OK! Magazine were the first to show the photos of Michael Jackson the day he died, as he was taken from his rented home in LA to Mount Sinai hospital. They called them the “last photos” of Michael while he lay dying, but let’s be real. Michael was dead and had been dead for several hours when that picture was taken. They tried to resuscitate him for over an hour before he got to the hospital and an hour when he got to the hospital. I was repulsed when I was in Safeway checkout line and saw the ENITRE cover of OK! Magazine was the photo of his face on a stretcher with breathing tubes up his nose. Again, money must’ve been on the minds of the editors, although I can’t imagine who would want to buy that magazine with that cover. Like many others, I bought memorial issues of magazines, but not for that sensationalist and disgusting picture, but as a way to grieve and celebrate the life of one of my childhood idols. I wanted something to remember Michael, no matter which of his faces was on the cover, just not that one devoid of any life, riding in the back of an ambulance.


On TV shows and the news, you rarely see the face of a dead person. On the A&E show The First 48 they occasionally show blood and a dead body, but they always blur the person’s face out. This courtesy does not seem to be extended to celebrities though, as the world seems to have a ravenous hunger for that last image that proves their mortality. I have the feeling that the only reason why we do not see actual shootings on the 6 o’clock news is because there was not a videocamera there to capture it. Although if there’s a cell phone video (ie when a California man was shot in the back by police while handcuffed and laying on the ground or when a 15 year old in Chicago is brutally beaten to death by several students acting like a pack of savage animals), I guess that’s cool to broadcast as long as you put a “viewer discretion is advised” disclaimer on it.


Because of our technological connectivity to other human beings, have we lost grasp on our true sense of humanity?


Speak on it.