Olympic Tragedy: Nikki Lorenzini

I remember learning about issues such as this in my communications law class. Basically it all comes down to ethics. Do I believe that the networks had every right to air the video of his death? Yes. Stuff like this is free reign of being showed on air. It is newsworthy and the Olympics are being shown world wide.

The real question is was it in good taste to air the video, and which I don’t think it was. It’s the Olympics. I believe that the Olympics are on par with the regular sports, that the people who are participating are thrown into the spotlight. So it only makes sense to have their death, if any, to be thrown into the spotlight. But to have your actual death to be shown on the media? It's disturbing on so many levels. The accident happened during training, not a live competition. I am sure the media had enough footage of him practicing to air as opposed to the actual accident. I would understand if it happened during the actual games, heck, I’m sure things like that happened during NASCAR or something like that. But to actually show a death during trials? I remember when Michael Jackson died (yes, I am dragging him into this!), they brought out a boat load of pictures of him dying. Lets put aside the whole money idea (trust me, I am sure the Jacksons/paramedics did it all for the money), does is still seem right?

Yes, I believe that this is newsworthy. But not newsworthy enough to get a boat load of coverage. Then again, I am not big into sports. I don’t even think I watched more than 10 minutes of the Olympics in my whole life. Since it is such a big thing, and if they are so instant about showing video of him, why not dig in stock videos?

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