The local Fox affiliate in St. Louis, KTVI, is coming under fire for airing (repeatedly) video shot by helicopter of a man driving off the road at app. 100 mph, crashing, rolling his SUV several times, and being thrown from the vehicle, killing him.

The "news value" of this video is that he had just shot and killed his wife (from whom he was getting a divorce) and her friend. He was fleeing from police when the crash occurred. The video was shown live and has been repeated on subsequent newscasts. (The incident occurred Friday. I saw the video again on Monday night!)

As I said, others in the media have taken the TV station to task for showing a man dying (committing suicide?), apparently in the face of long-held journalistic tenets. (Of course, it is sweeps.) They are the only station to have this video.

What to you think -- show the video? Cut it off just before he is shown being thrown from the car? Don't use it at all??

I worked at KTIV in Sioux City Iowa
It is the station that owns the famous footage of the plane barreling down a runway, and exploding into flames.
It is a moving piece of video (it's also out of focus)
The station would do stories on the anniversary of the crash, and NOT use the video. They'd say "There are other ways to tell the story without using the flames."
I think this is a similar case.
I'd use the chase, but cut-it before the man gets tossed.

If people in St. Louis are complaining, then they must really be bored this winter or antsy for Cardinal baseball because showing the video is nothing compared to what's aired in past years in St. Louis. For crying out loud, it was from a helicopter. Yeah, the guy was seen being ejected. I'm surprised no one on air (or a Highway Trooper) made the comment, "that's why you need to wear your seatbelt. I would have howled to hear that one. Those people complaining are the same ones glued to watch "World's Wildest Police Chases."

In 1973, when an Ozarks Airlines (now there is some ancient history for you) plane crash in the hill north of UMSL killing 38, Channel 5 was there within 15 minutes showing pretty graphic and closeup footage during a time when police lines weren't as tight as they are now.

In the late 80's, Channel 2 showed a man in a standoff with police from a doorway in north St. Louis then showed him shooting himself. There wasn't any "blood or guts" shown. 4, 5, and 11 were there but edited out the actual suicide.

When five people were murdered at the National supermarket on Natural Bridge in 1987, some cameras caught a good amount of blood on the floor. Now-retired homicide detective Ron Henderson (a different guy than the former St. Louis police chief) was pretty good at letting reporters get close if he knew you well and knew you didn't screw up things for them.

Heck, they all showed the makeshift curtain in the Board of Alderman chambers when Ald. Irene Smith decided she needed to pee during a filibuster and the sponsor wouldn't yield. I used to cover City Hall, wish I had been there to witness great politics in action - or as a few grizzled south siders said afterward, "they just showed they **** away their time and our tax dollars."

S**t happens, if you show it there are critics, if you don't show it, there are critics. Everybody's a critic. I tend not to listen to it much anymore.

Sez

I'd agree there is some news value to showing such a thing, but that value becomes tenuous with repeated showings. When I worked in northern Michigan, we had video of a veteran police officer being shot during an armed standoff. We opted to show the video (with warnings) unedited because it also showed the heroic effort by his colleagues to drag him out of danger and to an ambulance. He died a few minutes later.

We didn’t show it again. It’s the same rule most news organizations use with the 9-11 attacks— the rule in our newsroom is, no planes hitting buildings, no buildings coming down. I am sure there will be exceptions, which we will judge case by case.

(Here’s the shameless plug—sounds like a good topic of discussion for our ethics panel at the spring convention in Decatur).

Jim Gee
WCIA-TV