Ethics, compassion and common sense
I can’t get this anecdote out of my mind this morning.
After Hurricane Katrina, journalist Anne Hull walked with a mother and son who were trying to hitchhike to Dallas. They spent more than two hours together, according to a report on a talk given by Hull to a class of journalism students at the University of Florida (I wasn’t there, so I’m trusting what I read). From the article:
As she left, the mother asked Hull if she would give them a ride. Hull said she even called her editor to see if it was possible, but her editor said her job was only to write the story.
“We’re not Red Cross workers,” Hull said. “We’re not there to sort of make their life easier. We’re just there to show how things are.”
I’m not making a judgment on Hull or her editors. I’m just saying I can’t stop thinking about this scenario, in which a journalist — working on a story for her job — spends hours with a person in a desperate situation, and then leaves.
Now, in other scenarios, that is exactly what any journalist would do — for example, when you’re writing a story about homeless heroin addicts. You don’t pack them up in your car at the end and take them to the clinic. Hull is correct: The journalist’s job is to report reality, not fix it. Not interfere with it.
Most journalists would agree that there is no quid pro quo. If your source says, “I will let you interview me if you give me $100,” you should say no. Does everyone always say no? What if your source says, “I will let you interview me if you give me a ride to Dallas”? What if your source says, “I will let you interview me if you give me a $2 sandwich”?
Categories: reporting
I’m reminded of a very old Shoe cartoon in which “journalist” is defined as “an analyst that arrives at the scene of a disaster and shoots the survivors.”
Well, I have to admit that at first glance I wonder whether the person, if not the journalist, is compelled to help?
As you’ve pointed out there is s spectrum of help you could be asked for but there is also a spectrum of need. What it the “source” ( and isn’t it telling that they’re a source and not a person ) said “I’ll let you interview me if you stop the bleeding” or “I’ll let you interview me if you save my child from dehydration?”.
What about the efficacy of your help? If you’re covering a famine in Ethiopia where there is little that you can do as an individual is your obligation the same it would be if you stumbled upon a car accident where calling 911 will have a great effect?
Isn’t it law in some states that you must render assistance to people in dire need?
I don’t know how far from Dallas Hull was at the time, but I can imagine a scenario in which it would’ve been OK for her to provide a ride and plenty where it would not have.
Our way of “helping” is typically to write a story about the family in need after a fire destroys their house and hope the attention inspires people to give.
But it could be OK to also give, as a human being affected by a tragedy in the community. Would it be wrong to write about your struggling local food bank and donate canned goods a week later?
The rules depend on a lot of variables. I don’t think I would ever give money to a source, for example, but William Vollmann, a freelancer who I think is one of the best reporters in the country, does it all the time and it seems OK to me.
I think the key phrase in your post is “common sense.”
If Hull was 45 minutes from Dallas and on her way there, I think she should’ve given the ride. To not would be to hide behind a false objectivity. Her personal reaction to the people is going to affect her story whether she gives the ride or not.
This is the kind of thing that makes us look like idiots, detached from humanity and, I’d submit, another reason people don’t trust us.
As Matt writes, it depends on some variables, but the right thing to do is to help the person out with a ride, so long as they aren’t heading miles out of the way and you don’t feel threatened in some way.
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Hit it on the head, John.
I mean, ‘We’re not the Red Cross’ – seriously, is this our role? Because it sounds more like an excuse.
Just to take this down the slippery slope – would a war journalist not help a wounded person? ‘Sorry, buddy, can’t help put pressure on that hemorrhage. Got to stay neutral. This is all going in my story.’
This isn’t to say you should always help. There’s no way you can always help. But we can’t use our role as an excuse.
The funny thing is, reading the article about Hull again, I see where the editor is coming from. I just don’t think I would’ve called him to ask permission in the first place, long as I’d ensure I could file what I needed to file.
This stuff is dumb. Just give the people a ride. Unless they confess to a crime or something, how will that affect the impartiality of the article?
Too often, journalists are choking on gnats and swallowing elephants.
“Remember,
Journalists are supposed to be vultures,
not humanitarians..”
From “Tips for Corporate American Journalists (Powerpoint)”
circa October 2006.
So, journalists don’t interfere with reality?
They not only interfere with it, they decide what’s reality. And that, in turn, impacts agents of the events. When we had the riots in France back in ’05, those setting cars on fire did so explicitly to be on TV.
Don’t warlords have an incentive to be extra cruel if they know the media’s going to cover it more, the more gruesome it gets?
Interfering with reality is what journalism is all about. And a story about a heroine addict saved by a middle-class journalist (ie, someone your audience identifies with) is certainly more inspiring, and more valuable for readers/advertisers, than an nth account of the desperating youth.
Objectivity and ‘reporting the truth’ just isn’t possible – journalists are never neutral. Telling stories is what they should do.
@Nico: Touché! One of my favorite journalism movies is “Under Fire” (1983). Not because it’s pretty (it isn’t). Not because it makes journalists look noble (it doesn’t). Because it shows the risks and challenges of being human, of caring, while being a journalist. Right or wrong.
Jeesh!
Help them fer godsakes. What is it going to take for journalists to understand we are all part of the community/village.
The fact I feel it is necessary to ask my students if they should intercede in a dangerous situation in order to try to save lives is STUPID. Of course, we should. Wouldn’t we want the same?
Stephen Hermann
We are humans telling real-life human stories. I recently did a video looking at surviors from the Feb. 2, 2007 tornados. I was crying while a widow recounted the story of loosing her husband and young son. When she was done I hugged her. Maybe I should not have hugged her, but I did. I don’t think I acted improperly. Here is the link to the video. What would have you done? My tears were as real as hers. Please tell me what you think. (She is the last person in my video interviewed.)
Jannet
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid294382118/bctid1402023045
And what do you do when you are forced to step outside of your job as a neutral observer? Was at an accident once and I knew CPR and nearly had to put the camera down, but fate in the form of an emergency room doctor stepped in and took over. Where do we draw the line? For a human life I would drop the camera. I think we have to act compassionately without making our involvement the story – that is showboating.
“Covering tragedy is very difficult. You are literally walking into the middle of someone’s personal disaster and you have to remember your humanity first and foremost. The pictures will come. Be a person of compassion and the stories will come.
Another human telling human stories.