Sayen CroWolf's Blog

If it bleeds, it leads.. 2010/02/13

WARNING:  both these links below will send you to incredibly tasteless and graphic photos.  Click at your own peril.

Yesterday, at approximately 8am local time, a 21 year old Olympic athlete named Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed in a luge accident.  His death came during a trial run for the first time competitor; he never even saw a live time trial in Vancouver.  By the time the opening ceremonies had started last night he had already been dead for approximately 10 hours.

In the course of the coverage that has followed, normally reputable journalistic sources have sunk to a shock-and-awe tactic of covering his death. The NY times, normally regarded as a journalistic icon has included a 3-d flash diagram of his deadly luge run, complete with pictures that coincide with the point of impact.

The Huffington Post, whom I used to regard as a decent alternative source of news reporting, included stills from the cam grab of his accident, complete with on-scene medics attending to his lifeless body.  Oh, and they made sure the pictures were close ups.

WARNING:  both these links will send you to incredibly tasteless and graphic photos.  Click at your own peril.

My message to the H-Post and the Times?  You need to be ashamed of yourselves.  Seriously…

There is absolutely ZERO journalistic purpose to running this sort of coverage other than to climb on the shoulders of your competitors to ensure you’re getting web hits and readership.  The man is dead, and what should have been the world journalists documenting his moments of triumph has turned into a cesspool of competition to ensure the most graphic of images is displayed.  I’m sure if I took the time to search the internet, I’d find quite a few other news sources taking the lead from the two that I have named here.

I have been a professional in the field since 1990, and I have covered events that were some of the most graphic in world history.  With every picture I took there was something employed called integrity.  Some things are better left NOT printed (or pictures posted), out of respect for the subject I’m covering and those that they leave behind.  It becomes more valuable to be a human being with a conscience – not a journalist trying to make sure they’ve gotten their space above the fold.

Both the H-Post and Times should be careful.  With reporting like this, they’re nothing more than a step ahead of being a tabloid with higher paid reporters.  And it’s a baby step at that.

The man is dead, how about leaving it there?  If you want to impress me as a professional journalist (and a soon to be former reader of yours) run coverage on the long, hard road it took Nodar to get to Vancouver.  Not the tragic and unexpected twist of fate that made sure he was at the end of that road for the rest of his life.

Daniel J. MacDonald