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ONE THING YOU CAN SAY in defense of the Fox TV special "Close Call: Cheating Death" is that it didn't depict anybody actually dying. The hourlong show, which aired last month, did broadcast plenty of graphic footage of people almost being killed. Viewers watched a bungee-jumping father of two shatter both legs when his tether gave out, screaming children bouncing around in the interior of a runaway schoolbus, a Boston cop engulfed in flames as a pipe bomb exploded in his face.
The show is one example of a grisly new genre of so-called reality-TV specials on Fox and other networks, which are drawing ratings and controversy in equal measure. With names like "When Disaster Strikes" and "When Animals Attack," these programs bundle real-life footage of gruesome incidents with interviews and re-enactments. The result is shows that have even TV execs pointing fingers. Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC West Coast, last month called Fox's specials "one step short of a snuff film." The UCLA Center for Communication Policy singled out the animal-attack shows for particular scorn in a recent report on TV violence, calling them "just showcases for exploitative video footage." Says Jeff Cole, the center's director: "These shows are terrifying to kids."
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A case in point might be CBS's "The World's Most Dangerous Animals III," which will air Friday. The standard shots of bear, elephant and shark attacks are potentially upsetting enough. But "sometimes the animals we should fear the most are those we expect the least," the show warns, before rolling a harrowing tape of a house cat named Pinky going berserk and sinking her teeth deep into a man's thigh.
Fox spokesman Mark Kern would say only that the reality shows "are neither new nor unique to Fox. We've done them most successfully." A CBS official defends his network's animal-attack series as educational. "It presents the respect you have to show when you're around animals," he says. "It takes a very responsible position with regard to the animal kingdom." As for the human kingdom, you make the call.
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