A Suicide Gone Viral
Found on Slate on Saturday, 29 September 2012
Live coverage of a car chase on Fox News turned into a grisly spectacle Friday afternoon when the suspect got out of his car, stumbled down a hillside, pulled a gun, and shot himself in the head.
Of course it’s news that Fox News accidentally aired the video. And you can make a good case that Fox was inviting this type of debacle with its habit of airing live car-chase feeds. But Fox couldn’t have known that it was about to air a suicide.
Those chases are shown in the news because people want to see them. They want to see the fight of good vs evil in a simple, black and white world. Panem et circenses.