People on Twitter demand CTV stop showing luge death on Olympics track
People are chastising CTV on Twitter and demanding the network stop playing footage of 21-year-old Nodar Kumaritashvili crashing to his death on a practice run at the Whistler luge track. Comments to @CTVOlympics are rich with expletives, showing anger and disgust, and asking people to retweet the message.
“If you don’t like the Luge death porn #Olympic video, CTV Twitter is @CTVOlympics. Please RT.”
“STOP SHOWING THAT POOR BOY DIE! The video is not necessary to tell the story. Please RT”
“F**K OFF with the luge video. We don’t need to see someone dying on screen ONCE, let alone dozens of times. Stop”
“I’m not impressed with @CTVOlympics. Please show the poor luge kid and his teammates some respect.”
Personally, I think the footage should be taken off the TV, but I have mixed feelings about it being online. On TV, people might be exposed to the tragic footage unexpectedly – people like my young son, who told me at bed time that he “can’t stop thinking about the poor luge rider.” This led to a good, long talk about the incident, along with some conversation about how it feels to see something so sad and how we can deal with it in our minds.
But I’m going to admit that I wanted to see what happened. It’s part of my curious nature and I have zero feelings of lust or excitement about it. I always want to know what happened and I always look when there’s an accident. Some people gasp and turn away, but I always feel compelled to look. I don’t mean to be disrespectful; I just feel like I have to know what happened.
I never saw the tragedy on TV (since I don’t watch it much) but when I heard about it on Twitter early in the morning, I went to the CTV website to see what happened. I watched young Nodar’s face as he took a deep breath before shoving himself down the icy chute and whizzing through the curves to his death on the new $105-million dollar track known as the fastest in the world. I felt shocked and saddened by what I saw – and this feeling was intensified when I read a story by writer Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports criticizing officials for blaming the incident on the athlete: Olympic officials putting athletes at risk.
My final verdict: CTV should definitely take it off the TV (if they haven’t already done so) and consider removing it from the website, depending on the feedback they are getting from people. I don’t think his family would want people watching it and, thinking of this, I feel some guilt for watching it. My curiosity is nothing compared to the family’s right to privacy and respect. My bad, but I am certainly not alone… right?
No, you aren’t alone
have a nice day,
I saw it happen live when they just thought he was injured. I was in a restaurant in Horseshoe Bay. The entire restaurant gasped watching it. I felt sick to my stomach. Moments later, they announced he had died. This was on CBC while CTV was covering the torch relay. CBC did not replay it after that and I thought, thank GOD. Then I heard that CTV (Johnny come lately on the story) was replaying it. There is NO defensible reason to show someone being killed on television. Horrible.