Fox News airs suicide

A highly unfortunate result of Fox News making a police chase a tv spectacle ended with the live airing of the driver shooting himself in the head. The anchor, Shep Smith, having commentated on the chase right up to the moment remained shocked and apologetic declaring 'We really messed up'.

The incident is unsurprisingly trending on Twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/shep%20smith%20suicide and has been posted by PoliticsBuzz on YouTube.

Huffington Post has a full article on the past hour's events http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/shep-smith-apologizes-fox-news-live-suicide-messed-up_n_1923971.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Extremely graphic images on the broadcast. So obviously the five second delay didn't work, which then makes you wonder if only the studio was receiving the five second delay? Shep says the following after the video aired to the viewer, saying 'get off it' which begs the question - was he seeing the images after the viewer? Theres always a risk element though broadcasting live police chases. If you compare with the UK, the closest we have to police chases on TV is the likes of Police Camera Action!

We do get "America's Worst Police Chases" etc, one of which once showed a eighteen-wheel truck completely flattening a sedan containing two 15-year olds.

As for live news events, we were subjected to a lot of live footage from the riots last summer. All it would have taken was a misplaced brick or petrol bomb live on air and BBC or Sky would have been in the same situ as Fox are now.

Not that this excuses Fox's, or indeed America's, obsession with car chases live on air.

It was bound to happen considering the fact both FOX and CNN often tune into these often car chases. Another attempt to pull in viewers and make dramatic breaking news when there really are none, there are probably dozens of such chases everyday in US.

Of course, it had to happen in Shep's hour, as most FOX News disasters do.

As long as no nipples were on show or profanities heard they'll be fine.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened and it won't be the last. This is the reason people watch car chases.

There is a few clips on Youtube, twitter helping that alone, I have to be fair and honest, I did watch the clip, not to graphic, but you could see it what was going to happen. With a 5 sec delay it should have stopped it ever getting broadcast.

By the sounds of it Shep was looking at the delayed version off a monitor whilst viewers were seeing it live. Not sure how the gallery will have been set up but maybe if it had been at least 10secs, it would have twigged that viewers weren't seeing the same version. Doubt anything will change as a result though, you do get the feeling American regulators have slightly odd priorities.

I've just seen the video on YouTube. It's more funny than shocking, thanks to Shepard Smith's overreaction. "Get it off, get it off, get it off" he says as all we can see is him watching the live feed.

A rather flippant statement, one which displays little knowledge of the circumstances of the story, nor an understanding of the editorial decisions taken by both Fox10 in Phoenix and Fox News. I agree that car chases are used all too readily on American cable and local stations as material to fill out what may or may not be a slow news day.

To assert, as you do, that it was "another attempt... to make dramatic breaking news when there really are none [sic]" is shallow. Are you aware that this car chase was the result of an armed car-jacking in Phoenix? Are you aware that this car chase had lasted somewhere between 30 minutes and 60 minutes already? Are you aware that this occurred on I-10, a major artery that connects to Los Angeles in the West and San Antonio and Houston in the East? This was a legitimate story that had a genuine public interest.

A decision was taken to a) take the feed supplied by an affiliate and follow the story; and b) follow the story to its unfortunate and tragic conclusion. Yet a decision was also taken to switch to a delayed broadcast; this was a sensible decision to take and it is one that is made frequently when covering such events. This should be the basis of any discussion on this forum. A sound editorial decision was made. Unfortunately, and as James suggests, it would appear that the delayed feed was played out in the studio rather than on air.

For the record some of the commentators on this thread should look at the case of R Budd Dwyer. His suicide was shown live. Yet more importantly, in the hours that followed, whilst some local stations chose not to broadcast the event, two stations, one an ABC affiliate, the other an NBC station, took the decision to broadcast the event in full. What happened today is not a new development, borne of 24-hour news and the multi-channel cable, digital and satellite era, but rather one that occurred first in November 1963 with the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. What happened today was, for want of a better word, progress; that a news director can take an editorial decision to protect his or her viewers from scenes quite disturbing. Unfortunately, that safeguard failed.

Never mind a 5 second delay, the minute leading to him shooting himself is the reporter saying this isn't going to end well - easy to say in hindsight of course but they seemed to know they shouldn't be watching it.

Wow... so theyre now:

"Dystopian Future Sci-Fi Satirical Shouty Porn Sledgehammer Suicide Channel; Fox News"

I think maybe if the Obama-criticizing morons clambered down of their elephant-shaped high-horse for just a few minutes and took a look at their own ridiculous editorial practices they might stand just a glimmer of a chance of not making this shocking mistake again... who am I kidding they're doomed to be a disgrace til the end of time.