Whoring out tsunami victims

[Bella]

Jek and I hardly watch TV anymore; we own too many books, and when we do want mindless stimulation we watch DVDs or play around on the Internet. However, we do like to be kept in the loop, and so occasionally flip on CNN or some other news channel to see what's going on in the world.

The first image we saw was of a mother and child floating face-down in the water. The camera panned around and focused on the dead, both in the water and washed up on shore. Jek quickly changed the channel to MSNBC where we saw similar images. FOX was, of course, no better. Jek was furious - I mean furious - stomping about the house and screaming about how the media was "whoring out" the tsumani victims just so we, the consumer, could be entertained. I had no idea what to say to her.

In my opinion, news stations like for their viewers to be shocked, and what better way to shock than show images like these? At the same time, I couldn't recall seeing any footage of dead people during 9/11 (though my memory may deceive me) - so maybe there's a double standard? I also don't think that there would have been this huge rush to the aid of the victims if there weren't horrific pictures of the aftermath.

I don't know what the point of this post was (I had an idea when I started). Do we need to have graphic depictions of real-life tragedy in order to be moved to any greater emotion? Is this disrespectful to the people who have experienced such a tragedy? Does anyone else really care?

[D. Scarlatti]

Maybe your original point was that some people are literally whoring out tsunami victims.

Personally I've always found this 'shoot the messenger' stuff tedious.

[viscousmemories]

I understand Jek's point of view because I used to think along those lines too. I've always loved how well Natural Born Killers illustrates the media as victim exploiters angle. But it just doesn't seem realistic to me that they are showing graphic footage to boost their ratings. When a tragedy like this strikes people who want to know what's going on are going to be glued to CNN for updates. It's not like the typical Springer crowd is going to migrate to CNN on the off-chance that some prime suffering will be on.

[LadyShea]

I agree with VM, but also wanted to add that there were no remains really, of the 9/11 victims. People either got out or they didn't and those that didn't were buried in the rubble.

[wei yau]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

Maybe your original point was that some people are literally whoring out tsunami victims.

If I get your meaning, I did hear a story about how orphaned children are becoming prey to slavetraders in the region. It seems that even a tragedy of this magnitude can still be compounded by human depravity.

[D. Scarlatti]

At the time there were several video reports of WTC employees jumping out windows, but their broadcast was halted fairly early on. Maybe that's an example of the double standard alluded to: jumping Americans, distasteful, bloated Indonesians, acceptable.

[D. Scarlatti]

Originally Posted by eldar

If I get your meaning, I did hear a story about how orphaned children are becoming prey to slavetraders in the region.

Yep.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

At the time there were several video reports of WTC employees jumping out windows, but their broadcast was halted fairly early on. Maybe that's an example of the double standard alluded to: jumping Americans, distasteful, bloated Indonesians, acceptable.

Yeah, I saw that footage when it aired. It was indeed so disturbing that I'm glad they stopped airing it, but not because it was Americans vs. Indonesians - because it was watching people die vs. looking at dead people.

[D. Scarlatti]

Beats me. I'm just guessing at what the double standard is.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

Yep.

Yep, indeed: Criminals target tsunami victims

[Adora]

Let me put it this way...

A few channels here in Australia have broadcast a concert and the World vs Asia charity cricket match. Both of these made tonnes of money for the charities working in the damaged areas, phone companies said they would match dollar-for-dollarwhatever callers donated (and their calls in to the lines were free), they auctioned the jerseys the cricket players were wearing on Ebay for charity money etc etc etc.

But no one's asking how much the TV channels are making from the advertising though.

Yes, they're definitely being whored. They're a filler being used to sell advertising space, like a magazine or a newspaper article. But when you live in a society where there's a price on everything, what're you going to do about it? Sometimes you just have to shrug, do what you can to help the people and not invest any emotion in what these media-pimps are doing, because that's what they want. They want to get any kind of emotional response from you at all, because it means you're watching, which is the only thing they want. There is no such thing as bad publicity, there's only publicity, and being ignored.

So tell your friend ignorance is bliss and teach her that there's an off-button.