Television as a Hostage

May 1993: A man takes a classic hostage at a kindergarten in Neville (Paris) and summons the press. He demands a television set in order to able to monitor how the networks are covering the crisis. June 1993: A man kills René Bousquet, the former chief of French Police under the German Occupation during World War II. He gets away and, a few minutes later, summons TV reporters to tell them – and viewers around the nation – how and why he killed Bousquet. This is a “media-jacking” threatens all European broadcasters. Sometimes, television people make conscious decisions to show gruesome footage that comes out of situations they instigated. In January 1994, a crew working on a reality-show in Miami filmed a man shooting his ex-wife twelve times, killing her. The producers decided to air the footage in its entirely. The authors of this documentary chose to pause on this three stories. They have interviewed witnesses and attempted to grasp the psychology of these perpetrators so intent on publicizing their crimes on television. They analyze the role of television in situations such as these with reporters, with the American reality-show producer, and with viewers who saw these shows.