Howard Finkelstein, better known to most as the Howard in ‘Help Me Howard’, WSVN’s hugely popular newscast segment, is getting some well deserved praise.
The South Florida Times has a very nice story about him and his many efforts to assure that everyone has access to a public defender, but especially the poor and homeless who can’t afford high-powered lawyers. In recognition for those efforts on April 26th the League of Women Voters of Broward County awarded Finkelstein the Civics in Action award.
Finkelstein is “one of the original hippies” says Douglas Brawley Chief Assistant Public Defender of Mental Health adding “he’s about peace, love, equality for all people. He hasn’t sold out.”
And from the article it’s clear Howard is the real deal. He is the founder of the country’s first court for mentally ill defendants. He established Broward county’s drug court and after becoming the county’s Chief Public Defender in 2005 Finkelstein put measures in place that allowed defendants to spend more time with their public defenders where previously they were forced to decide their pleas after just a few minutes. [South Florida Times]
Showing the SWAT Dragging a Dead Person
Yesterday the swat team shot a guy dead and a nearby witness recorded the whole thing with his camera from his balcony. 7News used parts of the recording in their report.
Including what you see below. The swat team dragging the dead man’s body, face down, over the asphalt. Uncensored, unpixelated, unblurred. I added the pixelation in Photoshop.
They have now run this video at least 3 times. Last night at 10pm, maybe at 11pm too, and already twice this morning so it can’t be an accident or an oversight on their part. It’s deliberate.
Now, I’m no prude by any stretch of the imagination and I’m most definitely not easily offended (offendable?). Easily pissed off maybe but as far as offending me it’ll take all 4 TV networks at once and a lot of trying to do it. And I happen to think reports from Iraq are too sanitized.
But when I saw Rene Marsh’s report on 7News this morning and this poor guy’s body dragged over the pavement face down without even a little pixelation I was like “What the fuck were they thinking?”. And not only in my mind.
And I don’t know what they were thinking. If they were even thinking at all. It pissed me off enough to write this post and edit it 4 times already due to too much “bad” language.
I like my 7News, but this stunt was stupid, over the top and dare I say disgusting. And just plain idiotic. Or maybe I’m too sleep deprived and over reacting.
What do you think? Am I right? Wrong? Whiny? Should the 7News editors have ran the video in the first place or at least added some pixelation?
You can watch the report on WSVN’s site here and judge for yourself
Channels 4, 6 and 10 covered the story as well. Only WFOR, at least their 11pm story, used the same video footage from the witness but only the part where the body was laying near bushes and added a large blurred area to conceal it even though you could barely see it!