Tidslinjebrud

Herligt fuck-you 

(helt anden ting: jeg har tænkt på, om man i 1989 sagde så meget fuck/fucking, i DK, som personerne gør i Dorphs og Pasternaks Tal til mig!!?? eller var det bare mig, der ikke gjorde det, dengang, hjemme i Århus!?)

til de etik-bekymrede og timeline-mistænksomme The Jinx-skeptikere - og politiet! - fra Nicole Cliffe, her slutningen:

But Nicole, what if law enforcement and the justice system fail in their appointed rounds once more, and Robert Durst goes free bc blah blah chain of custody blah blah something?

Television has ensured that we will at least know that Robert Durst is a murderer. That is a great gift! As someone who would prefer not to be murdered, I like knowing that people are murderers, so I can avoid them. Do you remember when the incompetent buffoons of the LAPD failed to put OJ Simpson behind bars? Happily, Television made sure we all knew he was a murderer, and so he has been prevented from murdering anyone else to this very day, however much he may want to. I wouldn’t get into an elevator with OJ Simpson, because of Television. He will not be able to murder me. This will also be the case with Robert Durst.

But Nicole, they played fast and loose with The Timeline!

Here are the only timelines that matter:

The Timeline of The Jinx

1. Filmmakers make a documentary about Robert Durst.

2. During the making of this documentary, they tirelessly pursue evidence ignored or overlooked by the original investigators and manage to solve the case of Susan Berman and almost-solve the case of Kathie Durst while also entertaining the nation in a wildly-enjoyable six part series.

3. Durst is now in jail and unable to murder anyone unless normal law enforcement and the justice system manage to fuck it up again.

The Timeline of Normal Law Enforcement

1. The police fail to stop Robert Durst from murdering anyone and do absolutely nothing for decades and decades.

2. Durst dies of old age, probably having murdered a fourth person along the way, because he’s a murderer.

THE END

Spoilologi (tilegnet Josefine Graakjær: DET ER NAVNET PÅ KÆLKEN!)

New York Times' "Public Editor" Margaret Sullivan tager alvorligt stilling til NY SPOILERTEKNOLOGI apropos The Jinx:

Updated. For some of those enthralled with HBO’s documentary series “The Jinx,” the Sunday night news alert from The Times was the very definition of a spoiler.

Leaving nothing to the imagination, it read: “Breaking News: In Documentary, Robert Durst Says He ‘Killed Them All.’ ” And it linked to a just-published Times article about the high drama moment in the final episode of the six-part series, which had just aired. The real estate heir at the heart of multiple murder investigations had muttered some words, recorded on audio, that seemed to be a confession. The day before, in real life, that suspect, Robert Durst, had been arrested on a murder charge in New Orleans.

On Twitter and in my email, there was outrage, particularly from West Coast viewers who hadn’t even had a chance to watch the finale.

In this eerie convergence of police news and popular culture, where many weird questions arise, do these viewers have a point?

The Times’s Metro editor, Wendell Jamieson, told me The Times was on solid ground here because the show had aired.

“We published the story as the credits rolled,” he said, and that was when the news alert went out as well.

“This was news, and it would have been tweeted all over anyway,” he told me. “There’s a competitive element to this; it would have made no sense to hold back.”

(...)

Spoiler. I have no problem with The Times publishing an article that appears as the credits roll and in promoting that article. But in its breaking news tweet and especially in the “push alert” that flashes across your phone, a different issue arises. It’s worth thinking about.

I discussed this Monday with Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker’s television critic, who has written perceptively both about “The Jinx” (managing, in the current issue, to write something that holds up, despite its being published before the arrest and possible confession) and, years ago, about spoilers. In an email, she put it this way:

The problem with the ethical line on TV spoilers is that, as William Hurt’s character puts it in “Broadcast News,” “They just keep moving the little sucker.” Every time the digital options shift, a new etiquette pops up. With push alerts, personally, I do see the problem, which is that there’s no way for subscribers to “opt out” — especially if the spoiler is in the headline. So for viewers, it’s like some guy throwing your window open and shouting, “Rosebud is his sled!” even if it’s justifiable as news.

So, yes, by all means report the news. Obviously, that’s the priority here. But given the unavoidably in-your-face nature of a “push alert,” a warning and some less specific wording could have eased the pain of “Jinx” devotees who didn’t see the show in real time.