Morbid curiosity and Spectacle.
The way that traditional mass media spread news has changed a long time ago. Thanks to the Internet’s birth and the social networks’ irruption, positive and negative events are pushed out to users in real time and they are spread without restraint nor prudence by those who record or obtain this kind of material. Therewith, television and press have lost their shyness in their websites as well as in their printed version. On the top of that, they publish not only simple snapshots but also they provide all the details in developing the content, that means an indelecacy to a human being. Apparently, the more stunning is a picture, the bigger is the sale or the number of viewers. In other words: more money. Ghoulish fascination served on a silver platter.
This goulish epidemic that feeds up a nation like ours, with a lack of education in so many sectors, feeds back a society that only cares about taking pictures of deplorable events that cause stupor among the people and then posting them. I have always thought that this kind of idle people, hidden in every corner of the Earth, live just for record and photograph everything that crosses their eyes, no matter what. They are creatures that just provide morbid curiosity to whom love that harmful feeling.
I have written this preamble because I realised, full of pity and incredulity, how television networks, gutter programmes and certain newspapers grow up thanks to that lack of respect that sometimes includes minors. Wickedness has never had bounds. Here you have some examples of what I have been talking about (WARNING: this content may upset the sensibility of some people!)
Malasya Airlines accident. Here we can observe how they show the victims’ bodies.
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A policeman killed by ETA, a Spanish terrorist cell. His body was left in the ground and photographied for hours.
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An Iraqi girl after slaughter her parents in front of her eyes.
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As a solution, it is necessary to set regulations that manage to channel the difussion of certain shots and contents inside the traditional media, not only concerning timetable issues but also to consider if showing someone’s misfortunes is worth. I put an emphasis on traditional media because, in general, the adjustment of each profile inside the Internet requires a hard work. However, some pictures that involve minors are pixelated but that is not a valid solution.
To sum up, journalists sometimes forget that the incident’s victims are also human beings (including animals, too), that they deserve the utmost respect and privacy from the mass media under any circumstance.
The world’s respect for human dignity must not be degenerated by the strong longing of money.
