
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 15, 1995                   TAG: 9503160017
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SICK TV

SLEAZE SEEMS too mild a word for the brand of talk television that emotionally ambushes guests in the hopes of causing a psychic boil to burst before a studio and television audience of voyeurs. It can be more than trash TV. It can be evil.

How evil was illustrated last week when a Michigan man, Jonathan T. Schmitz, killed another man who had appeared with him on a show about "secret admirers." Schmitz, who had assumed his admirer was a woman he knew in the audience, was stunned when a man he had met a few weeks earlier, Scott Amedure, walked onstage and told the world he had a secret crush on Schmitz.

A few days later, Amedure left Schmitz a mash note, and Schmitz visited him and allegedly shot him twice in the chest with a shotgun.

Such an extreme reaction to a public humiliation, which the episode obviously was for Schmitz, is hardly reasonable or predictable. That is the danger of stripping people's psyches and manipulating their emotions before the public for the vicarious, fleeting pleasure of strangers. Private citizens so exposed cannot be counted on to be reasonable or predictable.

That people agree to appear on such shows to get their pathetic 15 minutes of fame - sometimes at the price of enduring heartache - is sad. That people watch these emotional spectacles with such slavering anticipation is troubling. That the producers and stars of these shows - with a few notable exceptions, like Oprah Winfrey - refuse to recognize any moral obligation to protect their victims, er, guests, is sick.

Home audiences peep into their TV screens to view personal struggles much as the ancient Romans flooded to the Colosseum to watch caged humans and wild beasts let loose into the arena to fight to the death.

The slain man in this case was himself a big fan of these shows. What a wicked twist, babe! Here's a concept to pitch to the studios: Talk-show fans so caught up in the provocative that they provoke their own deaths. A "Late Show" for the '90s. Hosted by, well, a psychic, for sure.

The people who go on these shows are, up to a point, inviting abuse. Talk shows naturally disclaim any legal responsibility for what might happen as a result of their intrusions into people's lives. But the higher demands of moral responsibility are clear. Bestirring people's passions and demons for public pleasure is a dangerous pursuit that runs the risk of their getting loose.

by CNB