VANCOUVER, B.C. – The video of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili’s death is widely available on the Internet but a bit of a squall blew up over the weekend about the efficacy of showing it on television broadcasts of the Olympics.

The Los Angeles Times published a poll on its site and the results are a dead heat. 48% say it was inappropriate to televise out of respect for the family of the deceased.

The other 48% say it was a news event and in that context on the Olympics broadcasts it had its place. The rest didn’t care one way or the other.

NBC chose to stop broadcasting the footage at the end of its daytime coverage of the games on Saturday. On-air host Bob Costas announced the network would no longer use it after more than 24 hours had passed from the time of the tragedy.

After that time period, continued use of the tragic scenes would have crossed a line. It is still up on NBCsports.com as one of the many videos of events at the Winter Games.

The delicate balance struck by NBC was between the news value of Kumartashivili’s death and excessive use of the video as the first full day of competition wrapped up.

Unfortunately, concern for the feelings of the luger’s parents and family isn’t going to weigh that heavily in these matters.

I’ve seen worse footage from war zones and athletic events in which competitors end up paralyzed from titanic hits to their heads. But then again, I understand the news function.

Despite its decision and perhaps to emphasize the news value of the video, NBC gave permission liberally to other news outlets to use the scenes in their reports.

And the truth is that people were clamoring to see what happened to this young man.

Editor’s Note: Yeah, Sports Climax is known for it’s in-your-face style of edgy reporting. We’ll show a naked NFL Player in a locker room or a heavyweight hockey brawl on the ice any time but we decided to refrain from showing the video of this luge accident out of respect for the young man’s family and his Georgian people across the Atlantic.

Paula Duffy is a national sports columnist for Examiner.com and the Huffington Post and regularly comments on sports/legal matters for radio affiliates of ESPN and Fox Sports. She founded the sports information site, Incidental Contact, is the author of a line of audio books designed for sports novices and in her spare time practices law in Los Angeles.