I thought the lessons had been learned long ago about live broadcasting during situations when people are being held hostage, but apparently not. The violent incident in New York State today has been getting the usual wall-to-wall coverage, and at one point CNN displayed this note from a local TV station's web site, explaining that more than a dozen people had run to the basement and were hiding in a closet for more than an hour now. The incident is over now, apparently, with a dozen or more dead and the gunman killing himself in Binghamton. But suppose he had access to a TV and learned of the people hiding in the closet by watching it. And these days, with instant website updates by newspapers and bloggers, we all may hold peoples' fates in our hands.
Apr 3, 2009
Endangering Hostages
I thought the lessons had been learned long ago about live broadcasting during situations when people are being held hostage, but apparently not. The violent incident in New York State today has been getting the usual wall-to-wall coverage, and at one point CNN displayed this note from a local TV station's web site, explaining that more than a dozen people had run to the basement and were hiding in a closet for more than an hour now. The incident is over now, apparently, with a dozen or more dead and the gunman killing himself in Binghamton. But suppose he had access to a TV and learned of the people hiding in the closet by watching it. And these days, with instant website updates by newspapers and bloggers, we all may hold peoples' fates in our hands.
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Well... I didn't see it, and only heard something in passing about "a hostage situation" somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI didn't care to see it, so I continued my reading, writing & listening to new country on satellite radio... and ate a slice of pecan pie! Now THAT was the highlight - so far - in my day, not a terrorist/hostage story.
Glad you wrote what you did about the stupidity of some in the "news" media.
I can't help but wonder if - God forbid - something like this should ever happen again, if Law Enforcement were to utilize a double cross to catch the miscreant. You know... lie to the media, which then in turn blabs to the world, and the miscreant goes and meets his Maker in a hail of lead.
Cool idea, eh?
Kinda' like the Israeli Mossad that employed a technique wherein one of their members posed as a videographer/journalist who went in up close for a hostage situation and killed the guy. Turned out they had put a firearm in the video camera's body, so "aiming" through the viewfinder was aiming for the kill. I think they got him in the head.
The "media" would probably hate it... but who cares? They obviously don't!