Fatal Footage

When news emerged early in the evening of Sunday, Feb. 18, that Dale Earnhardt had died at the Daytona 500, the video image of his collision with the wall went from seemingly innocuous to indelible. Footage of the wreck was rerun with such regularity on news programs that it was easy to forget that inside the black number 3 car a man was dying with every replay. In such situations the dilemma for sports news shows—especially those that are broadcast several times a day—becomes how to meet the public's demand for information without becoming another installment of Faces of Death.

"You never want to use video in a gratuitous manner," says Steve Robinson, managing editor of CNN/SI, which regularly aired footage of the accident for days afterward, "but that crash was big news. If we do an update on the investigation into his death or on the HANS safety device, we would probably show it again."

The emotional effect of the Earnhardt footage is lessened somewhat by the fact that his body is not visible. If the crash had been more horrific, would it have been replayed less? Not necessarily. When Geoff Bodine was badly injured in a fiery crack-up during a truck race before last year's Daytona 500, the clip was shown on highlight shows (and a photo ran in SI) though Bodine's flailing arms were clearly visible as his truck spun through the air. In some cases, however, networks adjust to avoid appearances of exploitation. Ten laps into the 1999 Marlboro 500, a race broadcast on ESPN, CART driver Greg Moore was killed when his car struck the wall and disintegrated. "We decided not to re-air the race because of the death," says Vince Doria, news director at ESPN. "You'd show a clip of the crash in relation to a news story, but you have to use discretion when you re-air it."

Though Dale's widow, Teresa, has filed suit to prevent the release of autopsy photos, Earnhardt's family and friends have found little fault with the replaying of the accident. "We're understandably tired of seeing the crash," says Steve Crisp, a spokesman for Dale Earnhardt Inc., "but we know it was a newsworthy event. You realize how much of an impact his death had on the world."