TERESA EARNHARDT’S ORDEAL

I’m a First Amendment fanatic, but I have to say the request by a Florida College newspaper and an Internet site to gain access to the autopsy pictures of Dale Earnhardt is one of the most sickening things I have ever come across. Do these people have any decency? There is no, repeat no, public interest, apart from evil prurience, to see the remnants of Earnhardt’s body. The newspaper is absurdly claiming that the photos will show NASCAR’s lack of safety procedures and head braces. But that information – and its relevance in the Earnhardt case – can easily be gleaned without subjecting the Earnhardt family to seeing Dale’s broken body sent out to the whole world on the Internet. Check out this story for the gruesome details of the case. To violate the privacy of a marital bond at a time of extreme pain for Teresa Earnhardt is simply wicked and cruel. To subject Earnhardt’s young daughter to this is, in the judges words, “unspeakable.” We’re learning more and more, aren’t we, that evil is still with us, and that in the Internet age, it has simply found more outlets for its expression. The only response we can have is to pass laws like the one in Florida protecting such things as autopsy photographs, and to try to shame those who abuse privacy for political or simply malicious or prurient ends. So let’s name the perpetrators of this evil: Michael Uribe, who runs a disgusting website devoted to the pictures of the dead and injured; and the Independent Florida Alligator, the University of Florida newspaper. What on earth are the faculty and administration at that university doing allowing their students to perpetrate this sickness? There will now be an appeal: more trauma and grief for Earnhardt’s family; more disgusting publicity for these media outlets who shame the profession of journalism.