Slate Magazine: Fox News broadcast a suicide on live television on Friday, after a man in a car chase emerged from his car and shot himself in the head. The network was broadcasting on a five-second delay, but “severe human error” allowed the incident to reach viewers’ screens. How exactly do networks censor live television?
25 comments:
I always wondered how live feed was censored since I have seen a screen go black or blur. I always just thought people were trained to guess what will occur next, which is why there are slips because sometimes people are unpredictable. People are unpredictable, but an quick reflexed operator could be standing by when an argument arises or if they know the live feed is following someone who may not have the same body language or tone of voice as a reasonably thinking person. I am kind of glad to know I was wrong, because this delay seems a lot easier and that a lot fewer uncensored incidents slip through to a general viewing audience.
This seems to be a much more severe incident than a rapper showing her middle finger to the camera. Seeing a man killing himself can have a serious impact on someone especially if it is not expected. This raises the question of what is the difference between seeing a violent act on TV verses in a movie? Don't we see men kill themselves or others all the time in film? This has desensitized us to the horror that actually occurs all around us. Ill be extremely interested to see if FOX receives much backlash from this.
I've often wondered about how live broadcast entertainment censors things - the 7 second display makes a lot of sense - but I think the more important issue at hand is when is censorship appropriate.
For a long time now I've held the opinion that absolutely nothing should be censored. As soon as a line is drawn in the sand between what is "appropriate," and what is "inappropriate," you've made a judgement. I don't think it's possible to make that judgement. Once you say something is wrong, you give "the man" (or whatever you want to call it) the right to call other things wrong, and deny other things.
By these terms, then this man's suicide should be broadcast, even though it is disturbing.
This article makes me question censorship in live entertainment. In live concerts and in theatre, censorship is very difficult to enforce. A production may be ceased due to "inappropriate" content, but nobody can really stop an actor from doing or saying what they want on stage. How is this different on television? While it is disturbing and threatening for a child to see a suicide on television, a child may also be exposed to such disturbing material throughout the course of everyday life. It should not be appropriate for there to be a live suicide on television, but mistakes happen, and our daily lives being censored may just lead to more sheltered lives in the long run anyway.
I honestly hadn't considered such a severe case of live censorship before. I've only really considered the live bleeping of swear words. My question is really, should this be censored? The article and Fox calls the lack of censorship "severe human error." The people who were at the scene all saw it happen live, and then it was broadcast over the country. It seems obvious that their are teams of people that try to shield the American public from seeing things like this, but why? This is a reality. It still feels wrong to me to air someone's live suicide, but will the people be penalized for their "error." Why shouldn't we see these traumatic events seeing as they are, in fact, news, unlike a lot of material being broadcast. How is this more terrible than any other non-live footage? There are gruesome events on TV all of the time.
I agree with Ms. Nover. While I think there should be some disgression in the world about what is placed in front of families on the television, this is the news. It is my belief that a news company has one job: to give information and news without bias or judgement. In a modern world, this is impossible. But in this instance, it happened. Yes, maybe it wasn't ideal for the world to see it occur in their living room, but its what happened. Life often presents us with images or situations to which we have to grow and adapt. I feel there is an arguement that live TV should never be censored. It's life. If people shoose not to watch it, then so be it. If if a news medium decides to puts a story in front of me, I don't want a third party deciding what parts of it I do and do not see.
I disagree with what some people have said above... Just because things like this happen all over the world, all the time, doesn't mean that censorship of violence like this is wrong or is in some way "the man" telling the public what to think. Yes, there is violence in movies, but movies also have ratings, and the public is aware of what they will see. There is some late-night live TV where some cursing is ok, and there is some day-time live TV where the same words would be censored. It's all about audience expectations. However, if someone is watching the news and there is no warning of graphic or extreme violence, I do think that censorship like this is important. People should be able to choose what they watch and what they want to be exposed to, and if that means having a 5-10 second delay on live feeds, then I think that that's a good thing.
This is actually a topic that is quite interesting to me. In a film and media class I took last year, we discussed censorship, and the wide range of material that should or should not be censored from television. It's and easy decision to blur out MIA's middle finger during the superbowl halftime show, but what about deciding what to show on the live coverage of something like the 9/11 attacks? How do you accurately cover an event that is potentially horrifying and mentally disturbing to some of your viewers? These are questions that those in charge of the censorship of ours news must ask themselves, and make split second decisions about. They are making a judgement about what should be shown to their audience. Just like every other part of the media, you are being shown what someone wants you to see.
I have never agreed with the 7 second delay. We watch Live TV because we want to have the experience of actually being at the event. If I am watching a sports game and some idiot runs across the field naked and gets tackled by security I want will laugh about it. If that happens while I am watching the game at home I have to flip through the channels until they sort it all out. Live TV should be Live. If someone kills themselves on the television and thousands see it.. then yeah its unfortunate... but its also part of the experience of it being "live." Live should be Live... and thats it. If you dont want your network to be showing some of the things that may happen... then dont broadcast it live.
I agree with Cat. I think that a 7 second delay isn't such a bad thing when the members of the audience are actually considered. Suicide is a very touché subject for many people out there and to suddenly have to confront that issue when the viewer isn't expecting it may not end very well. There are also many kids who watch the news with their parents, and while I am disappointed at the sensitivity of today's world, I don't think that kids should be exposed to suicide without their parents' consent. Yes, violence occurs in movies and on tv shows, but people are usually aware of what is going to be seen, and what they think is appropriate for their children. I think its ok to have a seven second delay so parents won't sue the news.
Maybe I only have this perception because successful acts of live TV censorship aren't necessarily newsworthy, but my biggest question is why there are so many "mess ups" when you have a pretty good system down? In the MIA example, the censors obviously saw her flip the bird because they blurred the screen (late). But how did they not get it in time? They saw it, they said "this should be censored," but they weren't prepared 7 seconds later. I'd understand if they missed it completely or didn't see it the first time. But how long does it take to press a button? Perhaps there is more to the process than the article reveals. I would have liked to see more on the difficulties behind it, rather than just a brief synopsis of what I could have already assumed.
I believe that there have been lots of incidences like this one. In the case of vulgar gestures or vulgar language, I might be inclined to agree with the implications that it's negligence on the fault of those in the control room. But this is news. It's real. It's not violence done to others. There was a supreme court case a couple of years ago, I believe: Fox vs. FCC the fleeting expletives case. I'm not sure what came out of it, but it just goes to show that this is a relevant, current issue that the FCC is dealing with. And the legislature is pretty vague.
In general I don't believe in censorship but this article would certainly provide a convincing argument for it. I already knew how censorship worked, but I didn't know how short of a time they have to catch the questionable content and that there is a large enough possibility of failure that it still happens. Undoubtedly if parents don't want their kids watching something like that they could simply not have their kids watch the news with them. But there are plenty of kids who watch it alone or online so that doesn't cover all of them. The article does not address fault but that was one of the things I certainly wanted to know. As far as I can tell no-one is really at fault Fox chooses to censor it but they do not really have to and even if they did, or do I could be wrong, they did try you just can't account for everything.
I think censorship is an easy issue in some regards. In live performances or contracted performances clauses can be written in outline acceptable behavior. In regards to M.I.A. if there was a clause in the contract stating these actions are acceptable and if actions of these nature occur you are penalized in this way (pay,public apology, etc.) I think also the performer needs to consider the audience as well an action acceptable on mtv is not going to be acceptable on Disney channel. I think in regards to the 7 second display it is definitely a positive and necessary thing to have but in some cases may be used more as a publicity stunt. For example "wardrobe problems" involving nudity or partial nudity do happen but more often than not are a publicity stunt.
Censorship is a interesting policy to discuss. The part that is frustrating to me is the entire set of "what if questions?" that seem to follow most discussion. What if it is broadcast with a more adult rating. What if it is late at night. What if it was on pay per view. Did it make people upset that the middle finger was during the Super Bowl or because the Super Bowl is "family friendly". But more importantly what does it mean to be "Live" tv, Should there be a true live broadcast for those brave souls and then be a delayed version for those more tender hearted people. I would want a delayed version if I was a father, so I vote for delayed tv and a more alert "Dumper".
I've seen the clip of this fox censorship mishap and while I am not easily disturbed it was really a powerful few seconds. This is really not an excusable mistake on fox's part. While broadcasting a middle finger or a curse word is something that should try to be avoided broadcasting a suicide to thousands of people is not ok. Especially when they are supposed to have preventative measures to make sure this doesn't happen. It was clearly human error and fox should apologize and fire the person who was in charge of censorship that day.
I saw this clip and I have to say yes it was shocking but could it have really been censored I'm not sure. The event happened so quickly and out of the blue that nobody was expecting it. It's one of the problems with having live TV which most consumers want (remember the outrage over the delayed showing of the Olympics?) you honestly don't know what is going to happen. Yes the 7 second delay might be helpful but will it ultimately solve these problems?
So i guess live tv isn't actually live. huh. i mean bleeping out someone and blurring me out at music concerts seems more reasonable than a man shooting himself. no one was expecting that so it wasn't easy to block, where at concerts you're on high alert and expecting it. i personally love when people miss the censoring. how ever in the case of some one killing themselves its a different story. as to solving the problem im not sure how it would work. i feel like if there were an automatic thing it would accidentally censor things that arent ment to be censored.
I think it would be interesting to know what the human error that caused this to happen was. Was the guy distracted? Was he not doing his job? Or, was he shocked, and didn't have a clear enough set of guidelines to be able to make a decision in 5 seconds that he needs to cut the broadcast?
When the issue is some slipped cleavage or a middle finger, the decision to cut the broadcast is simple, but when it is something like this, I wonder if the guy sitting behind the button has a clear enough set of instructions to know when to hit the button and when to let it go. I hope fox looks into this policy and revisits it regardless.
My immediate reaction was to Google this incident, so I see it for myself. Then I thought "do I want to see that? No I really don't.” But guess what? That was my choice. I used my brain and I decided what I did or did not want to see. That is the problem with censorship. I am not give the choice to view what I feel is appropriate; someone else decided what was appropriate for me to view. People will say, what if a little kid was watching that. What if he was? Who’s fault is that? It is not fox news' fault. Of course this man shooting himself on live television is disturbing, but so is watching an hour of any prime time television show. You will say "but one is not real." Does that matter?
I think it is interesting to note that people are reacting so openly and forcefully over this incident, while no one thought the images of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers were worth censoring. To this day I can still catch some footage of 9/11 on some History Channel special. So why are people not crying out over the public viewing of the death (murder even) of hundreds of people? Why are we now freaking out over one person?
It seems to me that the whole censorship "dump button" can cause quite a few problems. The title of the article is answered within the article itself statying that the censorship is done via the "dump button," however, before you can just use this button, you must deem what must be considered worthy of censorship. In context with the article, I would like to believe that the actual video footage of the suicide should be censored, but is it really a big deal to censor a rapper sticking up her middle finger?
This censorship system is very interesting, and I had no idea that's how they did it; I guess if I'd ever bothered to think about it it's pretty obvious that it would be something of the sort.
Censorship does comes from a good intention, but I really do believe it hurts more than it helps. As Rane pointed out, the point of Live TV is that it's live, you see it in real time, you see what happens and that's just the way it is. You can't censor reality, so why should you be able to censor the report on reality you're paying for?
There is obviously a leviathan difference between a middle finger and a suicide on live television, but when it comes to censorship, I’ve always wondered how the “dump” button works, but also to what extent it has to be used. The fact that saying “piss” or lifting a middle finger has to be censored is still ridiculous to me, but instances like a suicide are examples of why censorship is necessary. Glossing over the fact that the only reason the suicide was seen was because FOX was filming a car chase (an unnecessary event in the first place, in my opinion), the suicide itself could be a highly traumatizing image to a multitude of people, which is why the “dump” button is a necessary practice, albeit an overused one. Censorship itself will always be part of the moral grey area that is the preservation of innocence, but in cases such as these, I can agree that it is something that must exist.
Censorship is pretty tricky. Too much of it, bad. Too little of it, bad? There are tons of people who believe the news should censor things less because, what good is the news if they are not reporting the full, raw, explicit truth? I clearly remember the whole M.I.A. incident, people freaked out. Today in my Passport to the Arts elective class, my professor was talking about an exhibit with a small portion devoted to homoerotic and BDSM photography, where people freaked out and national funding for art dropped about 80% as a result, but that most people today wouldn’t bat an eyelash (partially because of the internet, but also society as a whole). Now, just a few years after the M.I.A. thing, I feel like many people wouldn’t care. But seeing a suicide live is something more on the brink. Do we sacrifice our human sense of empathy for our yearning for real, true, uncensored honesty in the news?
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