Olympic Tragedy

Twenty-one year old Nodar Kumaritashvili of the nation of Georgia's Olympic luge team was killed on Friday during training just hours before the opening ceremony of the Winter Games in Vancouver. Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled while traveling nearly 90 miles per hour. As with most Olympic training events, the entire incident was videotaped. While Kumaritashvili's death is certainly newsworthy, many are questioning how network news covered the tragedy – especially the repeated airing of the video. Kumaritashvili's accident was the lead story on both CBS and NBC's evening newscasts on Friday. NBC aired the video without sound. Diane Sawyer of ABC News cautioned viewers that the video may be “difficult to watch” before it aired on the network newscast. CBS aired the video three times during the CBS Evening News – once in slow motion. On Saturday, NBC made the decision not to air the video again.

Today we asked our panel if they believe it was poor taste to repeatedly air the footage of the fatal accident on network television, or if they feel that when something is newsworthy it deserves full news coverage. After reading what Scott, Austin, Art, and Nikki think about this topic, join the conversation by leaving a comment.