“There but for the grace of God,” says an aviation expert on Sky News, not adding, “go I”. But, talking about this morning’s air disaster in Tokyo, that was exactly what he meant. And it is a totally bonkers thing to say, suggesting as he does that God chose him to not die in a plane crash but was happy to let others die. Putting that to one side, I have spent much of the morning watching Sky News’s rolling coverage of the crash and it’s hypnotic. They are showing footage of the plane apparently crashing into another plane on the runway as it landed, on a loop, just like TV companies showed the 9/11 planes flying into the World Trade Centre. And just like I did on 11th September 2001, I feel more than a little guilty about watching.
Sky’s rolling coverage illustrates the pluses and minuses of covering a disaster. What I have seen is hours of speculation and guesswork from experts, who have no real idea of what happened and why, essentially to fill airtime. But here’s the thing. The loop film of JAL516 landing on the Tokyo runway shows an enormous explosion on impact. As the experts praise the crew of the Airbus A350 for getting everyone off the doomed plane safely, it seems to have occurred to no one that JAL516 crashed into another plane in which most of the occupants died. In other words, we are seeing a loop of people dying. Clearly, I had not lost the ghoulish aspect of my personality that compelled me to watch thousands die on 9/11, on a loop.
There is an issue for rolling TV stations in covering major stories which this obviously is. At what point do you step away from the big, often horror, story and report on what in comparison can be regarded as trivial, the “and finally” item? Because what is happening at the moment on Sky, and doubtless rolling news stations all around the world, is an endless loop, telling us nothing new until, they hope, something turns up.
One big difference today is that within an hour or so, mobile phone footage from inside the plane was across social media and then on TV. In 2001, the iPhone was six years ago from being released, but if it had been around, would we have been treated to views from inside the cabin as people flew to their death? I rather think we would have been. Today, we saw video footage of the moment people died. For the friends and relatives of those who died, and those of the pilot who has, incredibly, survived the disaster, for now, this must be harrowing. Because they will know what these people were doing today and that there is a fair chance they will have perished.
And that’s the thing rolling news needs to take account of. Don Henley, in his scathing media attack on the media, Dirty Laundry sings this:
“We got the bubble-headed bleached-blonde, comes on at five. She can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye. It’s interesting when people die. Give us dirty laundry.”
Because it is interesting when people die but not in a good news kind of way. Watching them die among the flames, which is what we are seeing on an endless loop, feels like a serious error of judgement by TV companies. Imagine if you feared your father, brother or son was on that small plane and you just turned on the TV and watched them die?
Of course, we need to know the news, presented accurately, dispassionately, honestly and without bias. I’m not sure we need to watch people die over and over again. I’m guilty too because I was watching and it took a while to register that I was watching death. I’ve seen enough. Hopefully, TV companies have, too.
