Last Friday the powerful Fox News station was airing a high speed car chase in the state of Arizona. The station thought they had television gold, but the chase turned down a gruesome and unconventional path that will live in television history.

The chase went through the highways of Arizona for several minutes and then came to a halting stop when the suspect who was being chased by police got out of his car and ran down a dirt path near the side of the road.  The man then stopped, pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head, committing suicide. Fox News caught everything.

“We really messed up” said Fox News Anchor Sheppard Smith on air after the event had occurred “That should of never been on tv, we are all deeply sorry that made in onto the air and that will never happen again.”

The event re-sparked the debate of media sticking their nose where it should not be.  A classic debate that seems like there is no end to it. Weather it be the O.J. Simpson low speed chase or the Michael Jackson trial the media has flirted with the line between privacy and all-access coverage for years, which has rubbed people the wrong way.

It also brought up the question why do we even have coverage on high speed police chases? Ever since O.J Simpson drove his white Bronco through the L.A.  interstate in 1994 in the most famous car chase of all time these chases have become a normality on stations all across television and most of the time some of them are not even important to the people who are watching the chase.

Though with all the drama the thing that was the most impactful in this whole story was the apology of anchor Sheppard Smith after the incident occured. The apology will be important for years to come because it will make news stations think twice before showing videos of car chases and devolping stories and with that change in judgement it may see the decline in live coverage from news industries.

The Fox News broadcast shows that in the world of media nothing is off limits and nothing is untouchable. It does not matter how many boundries have to be crossed or how many people have to be pushed out of the way the media will do whatever it takes to get a top story even if that means there will be consequences attached onto to it.