Thursday, July 31, 2008

Ethics in Journalism

I don't know if any of you you heard the news about the man that got decapitated on the greyhound last night but it's all over the internet, described with very gruesome details. I'm not going to provide the source for the article, but quoting Adam:
Why the hell do i wanna hear how this dude got stabbed and gutted out 50-60 times, how he was on top of the victim, taunting him with his head

Now, my question is, is it necessary for people for know the details of this incident? Should it be published in the papers? I believe no matter how gossip thirsty people can be, i don't think this needs to be published. It's enough to know that a man was decapitated by a psycho on the greyhound.

But i guess the other side of the coin is that the gruesome details would induce some reaction by the public to urge security measures? I don't know. I feel pretty freaked out reading about it.

I've always been on the fence about capital punishment, but things like this makes me scared of being in the world and want capital punishment. Yet fear is such a funny issue. A lot of crazy, illogical things happen in the world because of fear (case-in-point the Salem Witch trials, post-9/11 frenzy). I was telling Adam about how the Greyhound business is going to take a hit if they don't take immediate drastic measures such as weapons check, but I remember all the complaints I made with the crazy security checks for the airplane. I guess the greyhound incident hit closer to home because there still lacks a motive of the killer--whereas we knew who and what was going on for the terrorist events and the event is less gruesome. Honestly, I don't want to get on another bus unless there are security checks, who knows if there's going to be another psycho who decides to play copy cat?

I guess I should end off with a lighter note that i read somewhere

Manitoba needs to change its provincial motto to "Home of the senseless tragedy." First the 17 year old who died after being Tasered, then the 15 year old who was buried alive in hot asphalt in a construction site accident, and now this.


So a preventative measure for these things: Stay away from Manitoba, and all other polygonal states.

2 comments:

neural_traffic said...

wow, i just read that news. unreal. and for the record, we need to know the details. every last unnecessary gruesome detail. why? because that's what news should be. unregulated, uncensored and unbiased. Just the plain ol' facts. how can we make the right judgments with a partial story?

kingkao said...

1. Why are people so squeamish, I was hoping for some kind of pictures actually.
2. Have you seen a live decapitation, that shit is nasty, it'd be funny to see you watch that.
3. Security checks? Are you serious? Greyhound is a public place just like any other, there is no difference between being beheaded on a greyhound and on the street in the middle of the night. What do people want next, metal detectors outside everybody's front door so we know the streets are safe?
4. This won't hurt greyhound that much, since this is one of the most freakish occurrences ever.