The right to know
The Olympics started with a tragic accident, and we watched Nodar Kumaritashvili die, over and over. NBC played those four seconds at every break, it seemed. I couldn’t watch it. Part of me wanted to, just to see, but I had to turn away and fast forward through it. Did you, like watching the proverbial train wreck, find yourself glued to the screen? Did you stare at his body, tossed again and again off the track? Did you want to see it? Would you feel deprived if you couldn’t?
The people have a right to know. The press declares its freedom and gives us what we want. What they think we want. What we must want, since their goal is to draw the most eyeballs, generate ratings, ad sales, revenue. Anything that doesn’t interest us quickly disappears for lack of ratings, so we must want to see death, destruction, tragedy.
But do we have a right not just to know, but also to see? To be shocked, horrified, exhilarated, entertained by the death of someone’s son, husband, father, brother, friend? When they switch on the TV, they see him, too – is that fair? Is it right? There are far more of us – the hungry public – than there are of them – the grieving loved ones – so majority rules, right?
Is that it? Is the world run like a playground?
I felt the same way about the photos from Abu Ghraib. These human beings were humiliated and degraded. Not only that, it was captured on film (or bits – whatever). Let’s compound their misery and this horrible mistake by showing the pictures to the whole world. Great idea!
A friend suggested that the media must show these things, or we would cry cover up. Fine. Let the journalists look. Let them be our eyes, our witness. And let them report. That’s their job, isn’t it? Let them tell us what they saw, share their shock and horror, and we’ll forgo our more prurient tendencies. Maybe that will help us to be a little more human.