Thursday, September 22, 2005
On watching your own demise
Yesterday, passengers on board the JetBlue flight that nearly crashed were watching their plane, live, on television, as commentators speculated openly as to the fate of the flight.
On top of that, ABC, in its infinite wisdom (maybe it was only my local affiliate, but I somehow doubt it) showed the circling plane in a split-screen with the "Lost" retrospective. You know, the "Lost" one-hour special that was on before the season premiere? The split-screen images, one of a plane circling desperately alongside images of a plane crashing violently, stayed on the screen for what felt like hours before the station finally, mercifully, switched over to "Lost" alone.
This is ghoulish, irresponsible programming. I would be interested in hearing feedback from others on this. Were the networks hoping for a live on-air crash? It certainly came across that way. And I cannot even begin to imagine how it felt to the actual passengers on the JetBlue plane...
On top of that, ABC, in its infinite wisdom (maybe it was only my local affiliate, but I somehow doubt it) showed the circling plane in a split-screen with the "Lost" retrospective. You know, the "Lost" one-hour special that was on before the season premiere? The split-screen images, one of a plane circling desperately alongside images of a plane crashing violently, stayed on the screen for what felt like hours before the station finally, mercifully, switched over to "Lost" alone.
This is ghoulish, irresponsible programming. I would be interested in hearing feedback from others on this. Were the networks hoping for a live on-air crash? It certainly came across that way. And I cannot even begin to imagine how it felt to the actual passengers on the JetBlue plane...
