Christine Chubbuck was 29 years old. On July 15, 1974, she went to the offices of the small television station Sarasota in Florida where she worked. During her live broadcast, after reporting three national news and a local shooting, she said: "In accordance with Channel 40's policy of providing you with all the latest bloody information, and in color, you will attend a TV premiere: the suicide attempt. " She then pulled out a Smith & Wesson revolver hidden under her desk and shot herself in the head.
A thousand people watched the channel at that time. Very quickly, the station was saturated with calls of televiewers who wondered if it was a hoax. Some called the police. Christine Chubbuck died in the hospital, as she had predicted. The news director of the channel had discovered the text that Christine had written about his death. She treated his case as a tragic fact. "She wrote something like: TV star Christine Chubbuck committed suicide on a live show and was taken to the hospital where she remains in critical condition," recalls Mike Simmons. He adds, "I think it was her last cry of gratitude to all the people she had helped, to whom she had reached out but she had finally lost."
Enthusiastic the day of her suicide
One of her colleagues remembers that she joked about her suicide live, explaining that it would raise the ratings. Her brother Greg, in a recent interview with People Magazine, says she was very uncomfortable with the fact that the channel is interested in sensationalism rather than serious journalism. On July 15, the day of her death, Christine was fine. "She was in a much better mood than usual," recalls Gordon Galbraith, who worked with her. "Today, his enthusiasm still disconcerts me.
The film "Christine" by Antonio Campos, with Rebecca Hall and Michael C. Hall and presented at Sundance last year, tells the story of this young journalist. The resonance of this drama is peculiar to the time of Facebook Live other social networks on which we tell our intimate life continuously.
She was suffering from depression, then misdiagnosed and poorly cared for
Christine was suffering from depression at a time when the disease was misdiagnosed and poorly cared for. Her brother thinks she has bipolar disorder, characterized by manic episodes and depression. "There was no gray in his life, everything was black and white, things were wonderful or terrible, Chrissie just did not know the tradeoff." Single, Christine was still living with her mother and brother. She had had surgery on the ovaries and the doctors had encouraged her to start taking children if she wanted them. A situation she had trouble accepting.
In an interview in 1974, her mother recalls that Christine could not "connect with people". "I think the world saw her as someone confident, attractive, lucky, I do not know why, she really did not see herself the same way." She often told her mother that if one day life became too difficult, she would leave. She had consulted a psychiatrist a few months before her death but her mother did not want to warn her bosses: she was afraid that her life would lose the only thing that kept her going, her job. It was finally him who finally sank.
Source : http://m.7sur7.be/7s7/m/fr/1518/Sante/article/detail/3063691/2017/01/25/Une-journaliste-se-tire-une-balle-dans-la-tete-en-direct-la-verite-sur-son-histoire.dhtml
