Today is the 35th anniversary of Bud Dwyer's suicide. If you don't know about him: He was a Pennsylvania state treasurer, who shot himself in the head while giving a press conference. It's one of two stories that really shaped the character of my part of the country. I mean, we have had other big stories... the Camp Hill prison riot, the city of Harrisburg going bankrupt, a few other things... but Bud Dwyer and TMI are in a different category of news story, IMHO. Everybody who was here at the time remembers where they were when Bud Dwyer shot himself, just like we also remember when we had to evacuate when TMI nearly went up.
To this day, we still argue over whether the Bud Dwyer suicide 'should' be aired. Nobody who is actually in the media cares about if it is ethical to air it or not, they just care about talking about the ethics of it. The fact is, if this happened today, it absolutely would air, on a 24/7 loop, for days, and then the media would follow that up with a long tail of coverage of how horrible the media is for doing that, without any real self reflection.
For the record, ethically speaking, I'm solidly in the camp of showing the footage on the evening news, even if it does contribute to the rise of trash TV, like the Dwyer incident probably did in 1987. That said, I'm also opposed to empty moralizing about it from hypocrites. I don't care if the talking heads feel bad about showing bad things on the evening news. In a democratic society, I need to know what my elected officials are up to, warts and all.
Here's how our local newspaper remembers Bud Dwyer today. They are still trying to act like they care about ethics:
Budd Dwyer’s suicide becomes media dilemma: To show or not to show photos, video? Updated: Jan. 20, 2022, 5:15 a.m. | Published: Jan. 20, 2022, 5:15 a.m. Pennsylvania state treasurer R. Budd Dwyer dur...
www.evernote.com
Also, here's a song about Bud Dwyer