Live Broadcast Era

During the 1972 Munich Olympics, gunshots rang out unexpectedly. Palestinian militants from the Black September Organization stormed the Olympic Village, seizing Israeli athletes as hostages to demand the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel—a harbinger of the tragedy later known as the Munich massacre.

Director Tim Fellbaum’s film, September 5: A Dangerous Scoop, chronicles the unfolding hostage crisis as ABC Sports delivered the events live. The film’s sequential, real-time presentation heightens the tension of each unfolding moment.

Yet, behind the dramatic live coverage lay profound ethical dilemmas. It was the first time a terrorist hostage situation was broadcast live via satellite to a global audience—a dual-edged phenomenon that fed both commercial pressures and moral uncertainty. The live transmission reached not only viewers but also the terrorists, potentially influencing the very events it depicted.

Marvin Bayer, head of the sports team, encapsulated the quandary: “They know the whole world is watching. If someone is shot and it’s broadcast live, whose story is it? Ours or theirs?”

In an era defined by real-time coverage—from CNN’s live reporting of the Iraq War to daily images of drone strikes in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the nonstop broadcast of political upheavals—the question posed by Bayer remains as relevant as ever: Whose story is it?

— Tim Fellbaum, September 5: A Dangerous Scoop