I watched, of course I did. Just as you did if you had your TV on--- but I am deeply concerned about the implications.Last night as I was looking around for updated information on Rita ripping toward Texas I came upon live pictures of a large jet circling around somewhere. Typically when I am going from station to station I leave the sound down and the closed captioning up. These days when I see shots of a plane my first thought is about terrorists so I pumped the audio immediately.
Not terrorists, as we all know by now; a JetBlue passenger plane with broken down landing gear making circles above LAX, using up its weighty fuel, getting lighter, moving toward the dangerous descent onto the runways below. 146 people aboard, sealed inside that metal envelope, and every cable channel had marshaled its ever ready cadre of resident experts for commentary.
(An aside: where do they keep these experts? Does an unlimited cache of these people live in some special wing at each of the news channels on perpetual standby just in case something, anything, happens?)
Anyway, I watched. The slow, soundless circling filling my screen, the tension building. Then the swift and seemingly sudden descent onto the tarmac. I was on CNN at that moment, and Larry King kept asking one of their experts whether the landing gear really looked "broken." He seemed reassured in some bizarre backward way when they could tell him, without reservation, that this was a real problem, with real potential for drama and disaster, and not just a false alarm.
The plane, as we all know, bumped down, front end up for as long as the pilot was able. Then there was the terrible few seconds as the flames erupted. Five minutes later it was all over. Everyone walked safely from the front exit; not an ambulance was needed.
Good news, yes?
But then I thought about it. I had just witnessed a plane with all those passengers and crew aboard headed toward possible death. And I saw it live. If the plane exploded, if bodies shot out windows, heads and arms and legs everywhere there would have been no turning back, no turning away. And for what greater good? Why did I need to see this live? Why could the networks not have shown the plane at the beginning, kept up running updates, and then played the videotape seconds after resolution?
This was not a sudden situation. Appropriate news judgments were possible all along the way, but they were never made. There was plenty of time for decisions by news managers. But it's such a competitive world out there, and the only desire was to have the best pictures, the most immediate information, the most penetrating close-ups as the wheels hit ground. This was the standard applied, the only one these days. Concern for the people inside the JetBlue never outweighed the need to show every second as it happened, when it happened. If they could have had a camera in the cabin and shown the agony of the passengers and crew you can believe that would have been done as well. I used to be the one who made those decisions, way back when, and I know if I opted not to show the action last night I'd be out looking for a job today.
It was all about giving those thrill seeking, but safe, viewers like me what we craved--- and to do it immediately. All about how to drive up those ratings pal.
UPDATE: Turns out JetBlue left its in-cabin seat TV monitors on, and passengers wating out their uncertain fate watched the coverage live along with all of us... and some passengers had camcorders that they used so that today we actually DO have the added bonus of being able to witness them preparing for their possible deaths. We live in an age of great technical marvels, and thank god we clearly can count on equally great sensitivity on the part of the television decision makers.
