to prevail. Is the claim that the watching of the video was what has damaged these kids, that if they hadn't watched it they'd have been all right?

Telling them a horror story pales in comparison to walking them through one. Me thunk this was obvious.

particularly if my actions up to the point of my death were involved with law enforcement in a news worthy event over a period of hours. What if he had survived but shot down a cop or ran over someone on film? Would they have case for that, too? I think too much film is invested in these types of events. I think they encourage bravado in others. But I don't see where suing over does anything except satisfy a mercenary need to benefit financially from "tragedy". I think this would be obvious, "OK kids, sit down, you know how daddy was a convicted felon? Well today day he was fleeing while armed in a stolen vehicle from the police almost killing a bunch of people while driving recklessly at high speeds and when he got off the road he got lost and finally ran out of drivable road so he stepped out of the car and realizing he was going back into prison blew his brains out so that you will never see him again not even in his coffin."

I really believe losing dad or being abandoned by dad trumps the footage by a mile. I loathe FOX but I don't think someone's stupidity, a staffer - not a Murdock/Ailes/O'Rielly editorial decision falls to the level of a lawsuit. Its not as if the footage had any more to do with kids not going to school than dad's criminal record and his death in evading the police and that being on the news and newspapers all over the city and state and nation would have had alone.

to the public, subjecting loved ones of the deceased to vulnerability at the hands of any a-hole sadist who wants to harass them, bully them, mock them, remind them for the rest of their lives, and most especially when they were unaware their loved one was gone in the first place.

From the article:

Filed earlier this month, the suit against Fox News Channel and its parent company News Corp alleges that on that day, Romero's children heard rumours at school of a suicide on live television. They went home and searched for the footage on YouTube, only realising it was their father while watching.

Immediately following the broadcast of the death, the Fox News presenter apologised to the audience, saying the incident should have been censored using a delay. Subsequently, a Fox News executive also apologised and put the broadcast down to "severe human error".

Had the Fox "News" anchor only known how acceptable some right-wingers find showing suicides to the public, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble apologizing and admitting it was a "severe human error".

Anyone who doesn't have the mental ability to imagine what kind of crippling shock that would be to any one, not to mention a teenager, to see one's own dad take his own life, regardless of the circumstances, just doesn't have much of a grasp on reality at all.

Knowing someone threw it up on tv just for the hell of it, in graphic detail would be unbearable. That is NO public service. The public is NOT entitled to see suicides, there is absolutely NO justification for it now, and never will be. The very idea is grotesque, unwholesome, hideous, morbid, and shabby. It's so Fox.

I was lucky(sic) enough to see it; the anchor pretty much lost it when they didn't cut away. He was definitely both angry and horrified at it getting broadcast. Completely dropped out of Standard Anchor Demeanour, and they spent some time afterwards stressing how okay that wasn't.

I'm willing to accept that was a case of Someone Fucked Up Bad as opposed to Fox deliberately broadcasting it for the lulz or whatever reason.

It was live and there was probably what, one producer in charge that could have cut it? idk, I'm not familiar with this story but it doesn't sound like a board room decision.

Just a really sad screwup.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014249286

Looks as if they aren't concerned with learning from their mistakes, doesn't it?

No one can't say they couldn't have known this would happen.

Thanks for that link.