Christine Chubbuck on-air suicide

[annabohly]

Originally Posted by DeRick

I'm new here and this is kind of awkward. for a long time i never heard of such a thing as a real live suicide on live TV. This all started from watching 2 documentery style horror movies, "Quarantine" and "The Blair Witch Project". Those types of horror films adds fear on another level, a level that makes you think what you're seeing is real (especialy the 'Blair Witch') So i decided to "experiment" with my feelings just out of curiosity, see where it takes me. I went to Google and put in a key words like "death", "documentry", "media, cant remember all the words, it mightve been a phrase, cant really remember. I looked at the results, and my eyes seemed to have locked on "American television news reporter who committed suicide during a live television broadcast." Someone once told me that psychology says our psyche's do not sort out visuals as being from fantasy; it is all recorded as real ... death is death to our mind's lens ... So when i stumbled upon that story, i was shocked...just imagine watching CNN, Foxnews or some other news and all of a sudden you see that...this is no documentery style horror film made to look real...THIS WAS REAL! What you just saw was REAL! hearing the Chubbuck and Dwyer story sorta helped me put things into better perspective.

I understand what you are saying. I am a horror film fan, the gorier , the better. I have no problem seeing blood and gore, even operations on discovery channel. However I made the mistake of watching the Daniel Perl video on the internet, knowing it was real, it was awful. I still have alot of remorse in watching that.

[RivkahChaya]

Originally Posted by Critterbites

Just for the record, I went to high school in the mid-70s (graduated in '76), and video cameras & VCRs ~ VHS and BetaMax ~ were quite common. Even my tiny school on a tiny Naval base was able to tape basketball games, stageplays and concerts. The local AFRTS* station taped all live broadcasts (I worked one year as an intern there). It makes sense that a news station would have at least that level of access to video recording, and would tape live broadcasts just in case something happened that ticked off the FCC, an advertiser, Management, etc.

The point isn't whether the technology existed, but whether it's likely that anyone with a home VCR caught the broadcast.

First, the machines that studios used were huge and heavy, and you couldn't walk into a store and buy one. A home-user who was really determined could probably get one, but at the expense of a couple of thousand 1970 dollars, I'm sure. Then, you couldn't just walk into a store and buy the tapes. You'd have to order them through a supplier, which meant sending a letter or order blank, along with a check, through the mail, and waiting several weeks. Ordering several at a time would cut down shipping costs, and save you having to wait again when you needed another one, but the tapes, which may not even have been cassettes at this point, but reels, would probably be expensive too. The expense was one reason that the technology was not offered comercially.

There was another reason the machines were not comercially available, though. Cable television was not available everywhere, which meant that reception for a lot of people was dicey. People would not spend a lot of money for a VCR and tapes, if a rainstorm might wipe out reception the night they wanted to tape something.

So our theoretical video hog, with the expensive home technology, lives where cable is available. But that doesn't mean the machine is compatible with the cable coming from his wall. So we have someone who knows a little bit about splicing connections, and has access to electronics equipment, which wasn't a section in a department store at the time.

And, our theoretical vid-hog has to live in an area where he can pick up a broadcast of Suncoast Digest, the show Chubbock offed herself on.

Then, he has to keep the tape, not lose it, spill coffee on it, or lend it to someone who doesn't return it, all the way from 1974 until 2005 (when YouTube went online), and then, if the tape hasn't deteriorated, transfer it to a medium (if he hasn't already done so) that can be uploaded, and choose to upload it.

That's a pretty unlikely convergence of events.

More likely is that some techie at the Florida studio stole a copy of the footage for himself. But he knows enough not to share it with the general public until all injunctions and copyrights have expired.

Then, he will not upload it to YouTube. He will sell it to someone for a lot of money.

So you may see it yet.

A better question is why do you want to?

I'm with Annabohly. I love fake gore as much as anyone. But I'll pass on the real stuff. I take that back-- surgery and dissections can be interesting, if someone is explaining what it happening. Real war footage, real drive-by shootings, not so much. I don't even like to see the picture of Kim Phuc, the naked, Vietnamese girl running away from the bombing with Napalm sticking to her, and that isn't even bloody.

[TrishDaDish]

Originally Posted by annabohly

I made the mistake of watching the Daniel Perl video on the internet, knowing it was real, it was awful. I still have alot of remorse in watching that.

I have the same problem with the man who was kidnapped and beheaded after 9/11. My brother was telling me how he knew a guy who worked at a radio station that had the audio clip of his death, and it disgusted him when he heard it. I told him how there was a link to news about it here on Snopes, and I watched it (without sound on), and was shocked when it didn't stop where it usually did on the news, and showed the whole beheading. I'm grateful I didn't have the sound on, as the sight of it was beyond awful.

[wendybtn]

But Bud Dwyer happened in the late 1980's when most homes had a VCR. In 1974, the average family had nothing to watch recorded events on, unless you had slides made of photos or reel to reel video, as at the movies. Thinking the sheriff or her family would want something like that seems odd to me. It is trying to make something fit into the 21st century idea of normal that was not even an idea to most people at the time.

[Jacob]

In September of 2012, a car chase ended with a suicide that aired live on Fox News, and you can easily find the clip all over the Internet. I'm not sure if it would be tasteless to post a link, but I can if you want.

[urbanlegendfanatic]

Originally Posted by snopes

Various videotape devices have been around since the 1950s. What is commonly referred to as a "VCR" -- a mass market consumer product for home taping of television broadcasts -- did not exist until the late 1970s.

My grandparents were recording shows off TV back in the 60's using just a movie camera because they recorded several news broadcasts during the Kennedy assassination. They also recorded a few local shows that a cousin was on. So this would have been possible in the 70's but you would have had to have had a reason to be recording that particular episode at the time. The broadcasts they recorded they planned on recording. As for the Steve Irwin death that video was recently released and his family was in the news for suing because of it.

For the person asking about the incident itself it was the basis for the 1976 movie Network. The E! Channel made a documentary and that documentary is up on Vimeo if you want to watch that - obviously no death footage.
https://vimeo.com/45732760

[urbanlegendfanatic]

Originally Posted by Ali Infree

Back to Richard W.'s post, she was not a newscaster. She did a local show interviewing people, etc. She began the show with an ersatz news item: that the station in keeping with covering blood and guts events would be bringing a first, an on-air suicide. As noted before, anything taped was given to the family.

I have a hard time imagining that the station would want to share anything they had with other news sources. Really what would be gained.

Now, with Bud Dwyer, his suicide was captured by a number of media outlets. He was the Pennsylvania state treasurer and embroiled in a scandal. He called a press conference and shot himself. I think some Western Pa TV stations may have rebroadcast it at least once. One Harrisburg station carried it live. It was a snowy day and a lot of kids were home from school that day.

Ali "what a terrible topic!" Infree

I'd never heard the Bud Dwyer story before. Did Michael Moore really use the suicide footage in his movie Bowling for Columbine like it's being said on the link you provided? That's awful and makes me glad I never went to see a Michael Moore movie. Even if the man was a crook he didn't deserve that.
I also can't believe stations showed the actual footage. People can be cruel.

[Not_Done_Living]

Originally Posted by urbanlegendfanatic

I'd never heard the Bud Dwyer story before. Did Michael Moore really use the suicide footage in his movie Bowling for Columbine like it's being said on the link you provided? That's awful and makes me glad I never went to see a Michael Moore movie. Even if the man was a crook he didn't deserve that.
I also can't believe stations showed the actual footage. People can be cruel.

he showed just up to the point of interest. he did not show the actual event.

[urbanlegendfanatic]

I don't know how old this ad is but I stumbled on it and thought it would be a good addition to this thread. It's an ad for what looks like old TV recording equipment.

[blinkingblythe]

Originally Posted by RivkahChaya

The point isn't whether the technology existed, but whether it's likely that anyone with a home VCR caught the broadcast.

First, the machines that studios used were huge and heavy, and you couldn't walk into a store and buy one. A home-user who was really determined could probably get one, but at the expense of a couple of thousand 1970 dollars, I'm sure. Then, you couldn't just walk into a store and buy the tapes. You'd have to order them through a supplier, which meant sending a letter or order blank, along with a check,

A quick Wikipedia check says that there were at least two home video recording formats already available at the time, though they weren't Betamax or VHS (Betamax was released the following year). But yes, the home recorders were still very expensive, rather poor quality, and cumbersome so video recording was still very rare until it caught on en masse in the early 1980s.

One of the pre VHS/Beta formats was interesting as IIRC:

1) The cassettes were square in shape, with the supply and take
up reels stacked on top of each other

2) The recorder would record only every 3rd frame of video (out of
roughly 30 pr. second; the rate is actualy 29.97 for NTSC), and playback that same frame 3 times consecutively , giving you 10fps which I
imagine looked horrible in fast action scenes

3) There were special red cassettes which were used for movie
rentals that could not be rewound except with a special rewinder
at the rental outlet.

[snopes]

We got a call that confirms the tape's existence. While reporting the original story we had reached out to Mollie Nelson, the widow of the owner of Chubbuck's news station, but never heard back from her. She [recently] called us back to explain that she has the video — her late husband Robert Nelson had kept a copy of the tape all these years, though Mollie says he never told her why.

http://www.vulture.com/2016/06/chris...eo-exists.html

[Saitaina]

Originally Posted by blinkingblythe

3) There were special red cassettes which were used for movie
rentals that could not be rewound except with a special rewinder
at the rental outlet.

I wonder if people being used to this, is part of the reason later rental tapes were never rewound (well, this and laziness). It IS after all, hard to break a habit.

Originally Posted by snopes

her late husband Robert Nelson had kept a copy of the tape all these years, though Mollie says he never told her why.
[/url]

If he was the owner at the time of the suicide, he may have kept it out of personal grief and remembrance.

In a way, I'm kind of glad it exists, as it means she will never be forgotten (though with a suicide like that, it's rather hard to forget her) and will never be alone (a very common feeling amongst those considering suicide), but in a way...I wish they would destroy it because it IS a very personal last act and I think THAT should be forgotten.

[Gutter Monkey]

Originally Posted by urbanlegendfanatic

I don't know how old this ad is but I stumbled on it and thought it would be a good addition to this thread. It's an ad for what looks like old TV recording equipment.

It'll be from the 1960s. It's for a quadruplex analog videotape recording device used by television stations to produce their programming, it's not a home recording device.

[damian]

Was this incident the inspiration for the movie "Network"?

[blinkingblythe]

Originally Posted by Saitaina

I wonder if people being used to this, is part of the reason later rental tapes were never rewound (well, this and laziness). It IS after all, hard to break a habit.

I highly doubt it. The system was not very popular due to the expense and unfamiliarity with this kind
of equipment by the general public at the time, plus both VHS and Beta came out within the next few years.

[AliBaba]

Was this incident the inspiration for the movie "Network"?

At least in part, according to some:
http://jake-weird.blogspot.com/2017/...bbock-and.html