Media Critique: How Far Is Too Far In Pursuit Of A Story?

In the coming weeks, and months, there will be much talk about the need for a comprehensive plan for gun control, or mental health evaluations in light of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. The government will, of course, introduce more legislation and those who champion it will hail it as the greatest success to curb violence in the history of the United States (you know, until the next horrific incident anyway). But one thing that has come out of this that will not be talked about at all; will be how the media will evaluate its actions in the course of reporting this story.

Simply put, there needs to be a discussion as to what is appropriate, and what isn’t appropriate when covering a fast breaking, traumatic, and horrific event such as this. What is proper, and what isn’t.

The media, as a whole, needs to look into itself to evaluate and examine its actions in reporting the Sandy Hook shooting. The mistakes made were countless, but my take isn’t so much on getting factual errors. I can accept that, simply because, in working in this field, I know how many times things can be misinterpreted, or not mentioned, and in a crisis situation, getting the facts clear and straight isn’t always going to happen.

No, I’m talking about other measures taken by the media shortly after the story of the shooting broke. When word broke as to the shooting itself, and the number of children killed, members of the media descended onto that small community and were relentless in their zeal for the story. The lowest point, of course, was the effort to interview children that were in the building at the time of the shooting. The media would no doubt say that the parents gave the media permission to interview their children, but consider the fact that these parents only just hours before found out that their children were not killed, and many others were. They were not in any sort of mind to clearly know or understand how something like this could affect a child who went through such a traumatic ordeal.

Yes, parents may have given permission, but they should never have been put into that position in the first place. The story isn’t worth that.

And in general, we’ve heard in the last week, stories of media types prostituting themselves in an effort to get some semblance of a follow up, to the point of flat out lying to members of the Newtown community and making a general nuisance of themselves.

As it was said years ago, HAVE YOU NO SHAME?

Look, I understand the media’s position. In my job, I have covered traumatic events. One time, I had to cover a fatal accident in Southern Hardin County. Many members of the same family were killed when their car was hit by another one. When I arrived, I began taking pictures and then talked with the onsite commander. When I returned to the station, I reviewed my pictures and noticed that I shot the car that the family was riding in before a sheet could be placed over the car. The back end was completely covered in blood. I took pictures after the sheet was in place, and made a decision to use those pictures rather than the ones before the sheet was placed.

I’m sure the other shot would have been more dramatic, but I thought using it would be in bad taste, and decided not to. I have no regrets and would do the same thing again.

I hope the media makes an effort to look in and evaluate its actions in response to this story. It needs to happen, if only to save whatever shred of credence it has left. The worse thing that could happen is for one of these so called reporters to win a journalism award for their reporting here. If any reporter is nominated for an award for their actions, they should decline, and if they accept, they should be ostracized.

It's getting so bad that the local guys are asking others to back off.

For our part, we need to make a conscious effort to unplug, and not feed the beast, so to speak. We need to not tune in or go looking for every minute detail of a story like this, and when one of these reporters goes too far, we need to make sure they know it, but shutting them off forever.

It will never happen. These guys will slap themselves of the back and say how great of a job they did, and will never acknowledge their failures and shortcomings, nor admit that any of their actions were wrong or over the line, and that's a real shame.