A Bizarre Newscast

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Clarissa

February 3, 2015

Fox News did a very bizarre thing today. A newscaster narrated the recent video where ISIS burned a Jordanian man alive in a cage. The viewers weren’t shown the video. The newscaster described it, frame by frame, in painstaking and horrible detail.

I have no idea what the point of this activity was. Is describing horrible scenes in minutest detail supposed to be less traumatizing than showing them? Was this an equivalent of a trigger warning a la the Republican crowd?

The TV where this was broadcast was placed right in front of my Helix at the gym so I had to stay there for the whole thing. By the end of the newscast, I discovered that I was running 2,5 times faster than usual on the Helix.

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8 responses to “A Bizarre Newscast”

David P. Bellamy

February 3, 2015

Was this an equivalent of a trigger warning a la the Republican crowd?

I think it must be. These things change over time in weird ways. During the Vietnam War, it was commonplace to show dead enemy soldiers on television. Nowadays, television has to be sanitized in evolving ways. It gets weirder and weirder.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 3, 2015
  
  The narrative of the video seemed much longer than the actual video. It was all quite disturbing.
  
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  1. David P. Bellamy
    
    February 3, 2015
    
    Apparently the actual video was twenty minutes long.
    
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    1. musteryou
      
      February 3, 2015
      
      And nobody should watch it.
      
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Shakti

February 3, 2015

It’s likely they thought describing it would be less intense. Also it is less likely to trigger FCC warnings and fines. Fictional violence is fine; snuff films at prime time make children uneasy.

This is why I ask to change the channel from the default of Fox to something else whenever possible. I also dislike CNN/MSNBC as well. Do you just do the Helix?

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 3, 2015
  
  I’m now trying this new routine where I go to the gym every day and do these two machines for 25 minutes each, the Helix Lateral and a stair master. We’ll see how that goes.
  
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musteryou

February 3, 2015

Morons.

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raddledoldtart

February 4, 2015

So you subconsciously choose the “flight” rather than “fight” response to horror, on this occasion?

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