Television completely lost to telegram channels when covering the terrorist attack in Crocus

Television completely lost to telegram channels when covering the terrorist attack in Crocus

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Broadcasting is losing its former importance

As cynical as it may sound, for the media, terrorist attacks, natural disasters and other crises are excellent reasons for maximizing audience coverage. Everything that happened at Crocus on March 22 could have made millions of people glued to their televisions, but the role of television in covering the tragedy turned out to be not very significant.

For large channels, Friday evening is the worst time to quickly change broadcasts. As a rule, the network contains large entertainment projects. These shows, as befits a heavy “luxury” show, are very expensive, difficult to produce, and it only makes sense to interrupt them for even more expensive advertising. But last Friday, the magnificent ball of hits, stars and jokes was intruded by the flames of a fire, sirens of ambulances and police, reports of a growing number of victims…

The most mobile channels sent live broadcast stations to the scene, but in fact all of them could only place cameras where they were instructed, read out official reports and, of course, take amateur videos from the Internet, which began to appear in telegram channels almost immediately after the first shots.

The overall picture of the coverage of the tragedy could evoke memories of how the events associated with the terrorist attack on Dubrovka in October 2002 were shown. General plan of the Palace of Culture, where the musical “Nord-Ost” was being performed, Joseph Kobzon entering the building and taking out several hostages after negotiations with terrorists, the movements of security forces, an attempt to film from the roof of a neighboring house, doctors carrying out stretchers with people after the assault…

When shock gave way to attempts to draw conclusions, there were calls from some official platforms to prohibit television crews from showing the actions of security forces, because terrorists can also watch television and thus learn about the plans of the special services. At that time, journalists could still passionately make speeches about how people have the right to know the truth, but as a result, they did not draw any serious organizational conclusions or write media instructions.

Almost twenty-two years later, television does not need to ban anything: it has successfully dealt with it itself. But media have appeared that are quite difficult to ban, because everyone with a smartphone has turned into a potential broadcaster. It would be useful to listen to good psychologists on the topic of people’s manic desire to film everything they see around them and post it on the Internet. But psychologists themselves sometimes sin with this.

At large concerts, many spectators turn into “TV stations” even before the action begins. They film themselves in front of the stage, in front of other spectators filling the hall, and then, of course, in front of the stars performing hits. Thus, telegram channels specializing in news have a huge video resource that can be used almost online, because every more or less significant event immediately receives its video version from those who are present at it.

Television has no way to compete with such private broadcasters – producers quickly realized this, and for some time now the current picture has been broadcast on federal broadcasts directly from Telegram channels (the larger ones encourage their subscribers to send videos of any origin) and social networks.

Filmed on Friday in Crocus and on the approaches to the hall once again confirms that the most desperate reporters are ordinary people greedy for cool content. Unlike professionals, they don’t seem to think about the danger, turning on a mobile phone camera in a situation where they should only think about their own lives, and sometimes filming their own death, clearly not understanding what is happening. Some of the videos became terribly scary; there were stills that hinted at a complete lack of boundaries of ethical standards. As a result, people who found themselves on the brink of death did all the “dirty work” for the media, providing both network and broadcasters with personnel that the creators of film thrillers are not always able to achieve.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29244 dated March 27, 2024

Newspaper headline:
Beware, tough shots

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