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Last summer, when my wife, Monica, and I took a long-overdue vacation together, I volunteered to leave behind my laptop computer and to avoid all television. On the first morning of our vacation in Seattle, while worshiping in a suburban church, we heard of Princess Diana's violent death.
At the Seattle-Tacoma airport the following Saturday, waiting for a flight home, I saw reporter Bernard Shaw offering brief closing thoughts as Cable News Network wrapped up its live coverage of the funeral for Princess Diana. I saw CNN's obligatory "video logo" and somber theme music about her death—the sort of thing cnn usually reserves for wars, presidential elections, or political scandals. I had not missed TV during the week, and I had not pleaded with Monica to turn on the set in any of the places we stayed.
Suddenly, though, I felt a bit cheated—cheated out of the pathos of watching TV for the four hours between the crash and Diana's death; cheated out of hearing her brother excoriate the tabloid press; cheated even of hearing Elton John sing his maudlin anthem "Candle in the Wind," reworded in honor of the fallen princess. Covering the sudden loss of Princess Diana was, quite simply, one of the things TV does best: an epic, live drama that unites the global village.
Several such global village experiences have emerged in the lifespan of TV. In my own lifetime, I would cite these: the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Kennedy brothers; the mind-numbing mass suicides in Jonestown; the Iranian hostage crisis; the attempted assassination of President Reagan; the one-and-only Super Bowl broadcast of Macintosh's "1984" commercial; the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the fall of Jim Bakker's PTL empire; the fall of Jimmy Swaggart's empire; the hope and terror of Tiananmen Square; the Gulf War; the agonizing Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings; the FBI siege in Waco; the bombing in Oklahoma City; and the still-unfolding investigation of President Clinton.
One network news program, Nightline, began as a nightly update on the hostages held in Iran. Ever since, Nightline has done its best work while offering analysis of unfolding crises. Among faithful Nightline fans, who can forget Ted Koppel's courteous but indignant questioning of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker during the PTL meltdown, or his poignant interview with Harry Wu as Hong Kong faced its assimilation into the People's Republic of China?
For many of us, these crises have felt more real, more communal, and more personal precisely because we have seen them on TV. Television has enabled us to see news stories unfold before our eyes.
I vividly remember first hearing about the Challenger exploding as I met a friend for morning coffee—but my empathy deepened as I watched the haunting infinite video loop that showed Challenger exploding and then the shock on the faces of family members gathered on the beach for the launch.
Of course, these images do not necessarily evoke empathy. British author Steve Turner portrays the dark side, the voyeurism of such images, in his poem "Exclusive Pictures":
Give us good pictures
of the human torch
which show the skin
burnt like chicken,
bursting like grapes.
It will teach us
to avoid flames.
Give us good film
of the lady on the ledge
as she leaps open mouthed
and hits the streets
like a suicide.
It will teach us
to use stairways . …
Give us five page spreads
of the airliner that fell
like a pigeon to the ground.
And make sure you get there
before the victims are pulled out.
It will teach engines to function.
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