How far should live News go?

ABC viewers are starting to get a taste of what viewers of channels such as CNN have known for a while -that live, rolling News is sometimes confronting stuff.

Last night’s unfolding drama of the hostage crisis in Manila was screened as it happened on ABC News 24 as well as Pay TV channels including SKY News and CNN.

ABC’s Scott Bevan, host of The World, was left to describe the tense scene from ABC’s Ultimo studio and speaking to South East Asia Correspondent Zoe Daniel in Bangkok.

But with a gunman on board the bus, and hostages unaccounted for, vision could have gotten very ugly without warning (as if it wasn’t already). 8 people were later discovered to have been killed.

Bevan gave warnings to viewers but dropped away from the scene when it got too hot.

News Director Kate Torney said in a statement that footage screened on a news channel after 10pm may differ to decisions involving coverage on ABC 1 at 7pm.

“Last night’s vision from Manila was live and the program host, Scott Bevan, made that clear to audiences and warned that the vision may distress some viewers. The decision to drop out of the live feed was taken once it became clear that the vision contained extremely graphic images. This decision was taken in the interests of the audience. The coverage returned to the live feed soon afterwards, when it appeared that the siege had ended,” she said.

“We review and discuss our coverage on daily basis, and last night’s broadcast is no exception.”

Paul Murray Live on SKY News was also describing the scene until news presenter John Mangos later took over.

As previously reported here, it was former Today Tonight host Anna Coren who was just 150m from the action, giving an eyewitness account across CNN. That’s chasing a story.

ABC News 24, which has previously been criticised for not cutting to some press conferences during the election campaign, suspended its stories to show the drama live. But it seems they are damned if they don’t. damned if they don’t with some viewers using social media to blast the footage as too confronting.

So where do News Editors draw the line in a tech-savvy and ferocious landscape?

Everything changed with the first Gulf War in 1990. How well we remember the OJ Simpson car chase in 1994. We were rivetted by live vision of 9/11 in 2001. The 2003 Iraq War showed us satellite vision of bombs hitting targets and camera crews “embedded” with troops.

The decision lays in the hands of News Editors whose nous for journalism will tell them if vision is too risky to air live. ABC News 24 was right to air this incident, including to some offended viewers, but it’s also lucky it didn’t turn any more graphic.