olympics!

Vancouver 2010 olympics have been all the rage! Actually they really haven't been, as they're currently on and i'm 100 times more interested in kansas vs. texas a&m college hoops. could be an upset...that being said, there's been some media-related controversy in the olympics, that has pretty much been looked over by the general public but is a pretty big deal. People are arguing what type of media is "newsworthy". As I'm sure alot of you have heard, there was a USA luger who was only 21 that was killed in a bad crash during a practice run the day of the opening ceremonies. There was raw video footage of this crash, and since the olympics started saturday morning, this video was aired Saturday morning, showing the very violent crash.

This is controversial because many people feel that this video should not have been aired at this time of the day because many little kids are flicking through the channels watching their cartoons or hannah montana or whatever they watch these days. People are mad that their kids saw that crash, because it was very accessible and easily viewed at that time obviously. However, I heard a journalist call in on a radio show about this and said it was "newsworthy" and it's any media person obligation to air that video if they have it. From a media perspective, I completely agree that the video should have been shown. It was a very big deal, and something that if it's available, it should be shown. For example, we've all seen at one point or another the assassination video of JFK. Imagine if no one had ever released that footage? Would it have felt like you were robbed at being shown something "newsworthy"? That being said, the controversy stirs up in me a little bit as well. Should this have been shown at this time of day? I'm sure if I had a little kid I wouldn't want them to see a violent video like this when they're watching power rangers. So how far does the "newsworthy" argument go? Since the olypmpics started early, it was fitting to show the video, but should there have been more warning? Just food for thought...