I've avoided looking at any courtroom footage of the Oslo murderer, just as I avoided seeing any footage of Fabrice Muamba keeling over on the White Hart Lane pitch. I don't need to see either. I don't need to be further inflamed or shocked or moved. I don't need television telling me what to feel. I know what I feel about both events and I can imagine what I would feel if I saw either.
I can't say I'm in favour of the televising of British courts. Anything on TV - football, parliament, pop music - very quickly becomes TV. Once he's playing for the cameras even the Oslo murderer will find that some people will warm to him. If we only saw him as one of those courtroom illustrations it wouldn't happen.
Spot on David. I feel much the same about the media attention on Anders Breivik. Give a madman an audience and he'll play to the gallery.
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ReplyDeleteWhat, even 9/11?
ReplyDeleteSorry, but seeing those TV images "still brings me a chill".
True. Televising something automatically and immediately , it seems, means that a director or similar will want to impose some kind of narrative onto proceedings, "because that's what viewers want"
ReplyDeleteIt's the reason I specifically hate ITV News, as the reporting seems shaped to elicit visceral emotional response first, before any kind of intellectual one. It's as if the anchors and those in the gallery are sitting there, mentally screaming, "GO ON, FEEL SOMETHING DAMN IT! FEEL SOMETHING YOU WORTHLESS, DEAD-EYED SACKS OF MEAT!"
Maybe the last bit is just me, and I should get a bit of fresh air.