Discussion
The act of having a person’s death manipulated and taken advantage of just for money-making and legal purposes is just despicable. This is the worst form of taste and hence CBS should not have aired the show as they were supposed to realize that this was not in support of humanity. According to Cohen’s theory, he asserts that the media selectively chooses to pay attention to deviant, sensationalistic and out of the ordinary conducts so as to create newsworthy headlines. For instance, the media focuses more on murder and related cases as compared to other prosaically conduct. It is for this reason that the CBS decided to film of the tape of the assisted suicide by Jack Kevorkian as they are quite aware that sensational and weird stories are more newsworthy and they result to the selling of more high numbers of papers and keeps their audience tuned in. Social and political allegations are held by the way through which the media stations cover the union of the openly sensational and ideological ideas (White, 2009).
It is so unfortunate that deep boundaries were crossed in filming this tape by Kevorkian. The fact that this death was staged for cameras and was even broadcasted forms the most unsettling element of the story. This creates a notion that untelevised life is not worth living and this is why Kevorkian decided to tape this death as it did not seem good enough without being untelevised. The CBS 60 minutes could have run the film without necessarily showing the part where the man committed suicide; they could have edited that part. It is true that media stations often wrestle with the appropriateness of running a given film but in this case, CBS should have stroked a balance between the need to portray the hard reality of death with respect for the viewer's sensibilities. In doing so, this would have reduced any form of unnecessary offenses to the audience (White, 2009). It is important to note that news is part of the day to day living and news should involve all aspects of life but the media should always ensure that they are responsible while relaying the news. Assisted suicide is a sensitive topic and hence it ought to be accorded considerable consideration before being aired on a national television.
Correctional news has a minimal newsworthiness importance as compared to other crime and justice trials. Journalists and editors often do not think that the correctional behavior of the defendant is of any interest to the public and in this case, they disregard the publishing of these kinds of stories as they do not create higher ratings. The media is unable to keep track of their lives while in the correction institutions as the correction officers usually safeguard the information of all people within the facility. Therefore, once newsworthy personnel is received and settles into the daily routines of the correctional program, the media pulls away from their attention unless that person does something that is noteworthy as well as newsworthy such as the death of that person. Therefore, in Scott Peterson’s trial and OJ’s case, they were regarded as not newsworthy and thus their life while in the correction institution was ignored by the media after they settled in the institution.
References
White, D. (2009). The Right to Die Debate: The Demonization of Dr. Kevorkian and the Creation of a Moral Panic Surrounding Physician-Assisted Suicide in the United States.
