We have Timothy McVeigh in the center of the Coliseum, and the crowd turning their thumbs down and watching the execution. I don't know what that does for the civic psyche to have that as part of our daily news fare. As the experts struggle to define the debate, the culture rushes headlong to broadcast executions. Last month, it was U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft approving the closed-circuit telecast of McVeigh's execution for some 300 relatives of the 168 people killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. Last week, it was radio station WYNC-FM in New York and other National Public Radio affiliates across the country airing audio tapes of two executions carried out in Georgia during the 1980s.
Executions are an act of government that has been completely hidden from the public.
As adamant as Thompson is in separating reality television from public executions, he acknowledged that there is a connection between entertainment and news along which the culture seems to be moving. Part of it, he said, is technologically driven. There is a continuum. We tell ourselves it is OK to take pleasure in the humiliation or debasement of contestants because they volunteered to go on these games. Peroutka argues that many of us have become desensitized.