From www.tvsquad.com
NBC News President Finally Bans Video of Luger's Death
Posted Feb 15th 2010 1:30PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Sports, News, Reality-Free

News is a tricky thing. If you have footage of something, particularly something that is shocking or important or "breaking news," you're almost obligated to show it. If you don't show it, people would start to wonder why you're not showing it, especially if it has something to do with a major event that you as a network are covering. For example, the death of Olympic luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.

But when does "news" turn into exploitation and "too much?" That's what NBC was facing with the footage of Kumaritashvili's death before the Olympics even started. Some (including me) thought that they showed it way too much. Over and over again, often in slow motion and with commentary. They even showed it at the start of the opening night ceremonies and viewers weren't happy about that at all.

Now NBC News President Steve Capus has ordered that the footage not be shown again without his permission. Now, that does leave things open a little bit, if Capus believes that a news story warrants showing the footage. But this weekend Bob Costas told viewers that they would not play the video again during NBC's Olympic coverage.

Actually, CTV's web site showed the accident live during their coverage of the games.
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I didn't watch any of the coverage of this, but several of my friends did and were shocked that NBC kept showing it. IMHO, this is a hundred times worse than Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction in 2004. I'd love to see what the PTC and other people who were outraged back then have to say about this. I think it's absolutely disgusting that they kept showing this poor man's death, especially with children watching. NBC should pay a big fine and offer a public apology.

How Brave of NBC to ban footage they've already shown multiple times. They've already gotten all the shock value and all the ratings they can out of this footage so I can't give them much credit for banning it at this point. This is a case of too little too late.

They showed a total lack of class. I can understand something happening during a live feed that they can't prevent showing, but to take a video like that and show it over and over again? Just disgraceful!

They showed a total lack of class. I can understand something happening during a live feed that they can't prevent showing, but to take a video like that and show it over and over again? Just disgraceful!
It shows a complete lack of respect for the deceased competitor, his family, his teamates, and his fellow competitors who still have a race to run on that same track.

I agree with you 100%, Marv.

I have been DVR'ing everything, so I'm a bit behind. Just watched the Opening Ceremony a few hours ago! WOW!!! But seeing that video once was shocking enough. The latest on Nodar Kumaritashvili was when they showed his parents. Now that was a little tacky and I guess they interviewed his father who said that he doesn't want to see the video, nor has he seen it. I certainly wouldn't want to see how my child was killed, moments after I spoke with him or her.

I'm probably the only one, but I'm kind of liking NBC's coverage of the games. And truth be told, I think I've DVR'd everything so far (and slowly getting caught up), and I've only seen the video twice in it's entireity. The last time they only showed him taking off and then an empty luge sled on the track.

But this story reminds me of when 9/11 happened and they showed the footage of those planes crashing over and over and over. They still do that! Like we've never seen it before! You would have to be living in a cave not to see that! And just the other day on the front page of the Seattle Times are some newly released photos (which I'm guessing were published around the world as well) of the WTC explosions from helicopters. Very creepy.

Sorry to change the subject, though.. I agree, enough is enough. I'd rather see Bio's about Nodar Kumaritashvili's life since I really know nothing about him other than his birthdate, his age, country and how he died.