
Louisville guard Kevin Ware suffered a horrific injury last night in the Men’s NCAA Basketball Midwest regional finals game between Duke and Louisville. Ware jumped in the air in the attempt to block a Duke jump shot and when he landed, his right leg buckled and his tibia bone could be seen protruding from his skin.
Needless to say, the game came to stop.
CBS immediately focused on the Louisville players reacting in shock to the gruesome injury of their teammate. They then showed the injury again, this time in slow motion. Then, they showed it again, as if anyone needs to see a person’s tibia bone violently leave their body on national broadcast TV three separate times.
It’s a basketball game, not a live production of Hostel.
CBS may have played it again, but I wouldn’t know. I turned the channel and never turned the game back on. Louisville went on to win the game in commanding fashion, 85-63.
I don’t understand why it’s acceptable to show a horrific injury on broadcast TV and then show it again and again in slow motion. Nine years ago during the half-time show for Super Bowl XXXVIII, Janet Jackson’s boob was accidentally, momentarily exposed on CBS and the FCC fined the network a whopping $550,000 for indecency. The fine was eventually thrown out by an appeals court, but the fact remains that CBS was accused of indecency for accidentally showing a second of an exposed boobie on national TV. I don’t understand how showing a woman’s exposed breast can be considered indecent, but showing a man’s tibia bone break the skin, isn’t.
CBS shouldn’t have been fined for showing one second of Janet Jackson’s exposed breast, but they should be for showing Kevin Ware’s injury over and over again. They won’t, but they should be.
Photograph by Streeter Lecka/Getty
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