Sept. 6, 2006, 12:59AM
Should footage of Irwin's death be made public?
No plans to release tape, but debate continues over whether it'd be right to do so
By JOCELYN NOVECK
Associated Press
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-->NEW YORK - "If I'm going to die," the late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin said in a 2002 interview, "at least I want it filmed."
He spoke with his usual humor, and clearly had no idea what would happen four years later. But the fact is, a tape does exist of Irwin's fatal encounter with a stingray while filming a TV show.
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And so the question arises: In the age of instant Web videos, might it get out? And in the broader sense, is making footage of a death public ever justified?
For its part, Discovery Communications, the network where Irwin became a star, said there was absolutely no truth to rumors that the footage, now in possession of police in Queensland, Australia, might be released.
But that doesn't mean there aren't concerns that someone could attempt to get their hands on it and publicize it for lurid means — or just to show they had it. That, said media analyst Martin Kaplan, would be tantamount to a snuff film.
"The only remote justification for publicizing this would be accident prevention," said Kaplan, of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. "But that argument is a stretch."
Experts say deaths from a stingray encounter are exceedingly rare. Irwin died Monday at age 44 after being stabbed in the chest by the stingray's poisonous spine while filming on the Great Barrier Reef.
He was hugely popular in the U.S., becoming a star as the Crocodile Hunter on Discovery's Animal Planet channel.
Irwin's manager and close friend, John Stainton, had the painful experience of watching the videotape where Irwin pulls the stingray barb from his chest. He called it "shocking."
"It's a very hard thing to watch, because you are actually witnessing somebody die, and it's terrible," he told reporters.
The fact that a tape exists recalls the death of Timothy Treadwell, a bear enthusiast who lived among them for a dozen years in Alaska before being fatally mauled in 2003. A video camera with the lens cap on captured the audio of that attack. It has never emerged in public — though in his documentary Grizzly Man, director Werner Herzog was seen listening to it with headphones on.
Samuel G. Freedman, who teaches a media ethics class at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, says the issue is "whether there is any compelling public interest" in the release of something so shocking as footage of a death. Here, he says, there clearly isn't.
"The lay person is not going into the water trying to have encounters with stingrays," Freedman said.
Should footage of Irwin's death be made public?
No plans to release tape, but debate continues over whether it'd be right to do so
By JOCELYN NOVECK
Associated Press
<!-- commented out ad <iframe width="1" height="1" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder=0 scrolling=no></iframe> <script></script>
-->NEW YORK - "If I'm going to die," the late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin said in a 2002 interview, "at least I want it filmed."
He spoke with his usual humor, and clearly had no idea what would happen four years later. But the fact is, a tape does exist of Irwin's fatal encounter with a stingray while filming a TV show.
<!-- adPro.mpl: (/) (elapsed 0.197 milli) (Wed Sep 6 16:29:43 2006) --><!-- OAD AdSpace 300x250 - ALL AREAS --><SCRIPT minmax_bound="true">try{OAS_AD('Middle');}catch(e){}</SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript minmax_bound="true"> var bnum=new Number(Math.floor(99999999 * Math.random())+1); document.write('<SCR'+'IPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" '); document.write('SRC="http://servedby.advertising.com/site=693431/size=300250/bnum='+bnum+'/optn=1"></SCR'+'IPT>'); </SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://servedby.advertising.com/site=693431/size=300250/bnum=26812038/optn=1" minmax_bound="true"></SCRIPT>
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And so the question arises: In the age of instant Web videos, might it get out? And in the broader sense, is making footage of a death public ever justified?
For its part, Discovery Communications, the network where Irwin became a star, said there was absolutely no truth to rumors that the footage, now in possession of police in Queensland, Australia, might be released.
But that doesn't mean there aren't concerns that someone could attempt to get their hands on it and publicize it for lurid means — or just to show they had it. That, said media analyst Martin Kaplan, would be tantamount to a snuff film.
"The only remote justification for publicizing this would be accident prevention," said Kaplan, of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. "But that argument is a stretch."
Experts say deaths from a stingray encounter are exceedingly rare. Irwin died Monday at age 44 after being stabbed in the chest by the stingray's poisonous spine while filming on the Great Barrier Reef.
He was hugely popular in the U.S., becoming a star as the Crocodile Hunter on Discovery's Animal Planet channel.
Irwin's manager and close friend, John Stainton, had the painful experience of watching the videotape where Irwin pulls the stingray barb from his chest. He called it "shocking."
"It's a very hard thing to watch, because you are actually witnessing somebody die, and it's terrible," he told reporters.
The fact that a tape exists recalls the death of Timothy Treadwell, a bear enthusiast who lived among them for a dozen years in Alaska before being fatally mauled in 2003. A video camera with the lens cap on captured the audio of that attack. It has never emerged in public — though in his documentary Grizzly Man, director Werner Herzog was seen listening to it with headphones on.
Samuel G. Freedman, who teaches a media ethics class at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, says the issue is "whether there is any compelling public interest" in the release of something so shocking as footage of a death. Here, he says, there clearly isn't.
"The lay person is not going into the water trying to have encounters with stingrays," Freedman said.
