Comments on: Moving away from sad and tragic stories

By: Mindy McAdams

Mindy McAdams — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:02:30 +0000

Thanks for all your thoughtful comments. I’m happy to see I’m not alone, and I’m really glad to see that photojournalists are thinking about these questions. There are certainly a lot of issues that are important to people’s lives, and great photos can help explain those issues and make them understandable.

By: Sandy Olson

Sandy Olson — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:23:16 +0000

I am going to take the hard road here. The problem I have with personal tragedy stories whether they end happily or not is that they often distract from the issues behind them. Are these random situations or is there some reason why they happened? I think we can fill up the news with “human interest” stories so as to not take the risk of uncovering the bigger issues. Where is the investigation here?Our local papers and news shows are full of these stories but avoid talking about leakage from the local dump or corruption at city hall.

By: Tracey Eaton

Tracey Eaton — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:20:21 +0000

I agree with Mindy. A lot of people just don’t want to read about death and tragedy. Almost 10 years ago, I helped write a special section called Hidden Wars for the Dallas Morning News. It was about terrible conflicts and massacres that haven’t gotten a lot of headlines. I joined other Morning News reporters who investigated war in Africa and other spots. The special section included all kinds of graphic photos of amputees and victims of war in Africa.
My contribution was a piece on the aftermath of civil war in Guatemala. I worked on it with Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer Cheryl Diaz-Meyer.
I was proud of the special section and showed to my best critic – my mom. I asked her later how she liked it. She said something about not quite being able to get through it. That’s when I knew – people don’t like downers.

By: Martha Rojas

Martha Rojas — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:33:30 +0000

I totally agree with the idea that the public has difficulties in daily basis and that covering individual tradegies can be too much.
Thank you Mandy for your great job at sharing all theses atircles on the new journalism.
Martha Avelina Rojas

By: FridayNet » Blog Archive » Bookmarks for September 11th through September 16th

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:05:08 +0000

[...] Teaching Online Journalism » Moving away from sad and tragic stories – The damage done to journalism by individual tragedy stories (unconnected to larger events) is that they drive people away. There’s enough difficulty in people’s everyday lives, they say. The news is such a downer. Sometimes the news has got to be a downer. But not every downer story is a story the public needs to hear. [...]

By: scottwgray

scottwgray — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:23:26 +0000

I’m of two minds with this decision. I agree that “downer” news can overwhelm an audience into apathy, but just yesterday I watched MediaStorm’s piece (by Jessica Dimmock) on junkies trying to turn their lives around, and found it really important as a means to reconnect w/ my own empathy. It’s trite to say “touching”, but pieces like this can touch the deepest part of us in really profound ways.

However, I find I have more patience with new media pieces (rather than straight text, or video) that have such a focus.

By: Mindy McAdams

Mindy McAdams — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:23:11 +0000

Hi, Alex. Thanks for your comment. I’m very much in favor of articles that help us understand other people and their lives. One of the great potentials of good journalism is that some stories help us overcome hatred, aversion, or just plain stupid ignorance about others and their life conditions.

I personally like to see stories about adults with Down syndrome who have jobs and live partly or wholly independent lives. As a result of having read such stories, I no longer look at children with Down syndrome and feel pity (which was how I used to feel when I was ignorant about their potential).

Those kinds of stories need to show more than one case, however, to be effective.

By: Alex Tiegen

Alex Tiegen — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:05:43 +0000

As someone with a disability, I’ve been eager to see stories that veer away from sentimentality and focus on the broader societal changes challenges that dictate life for those who are disabled.

Tales of an amputee learning to do work with a prosthetic hand or a paraplegic triumphing at wheelchair basketball can be touching, but they’re all too often trite, especially as accommodations for these disabilities have been around for awhile. These stories turn sources into passive characters instead of active ones.

Rather than simply writing about a person with downs syndrome who can’t get a job in the current market, it’s more interesting to uncover what people with disabilities are doing to adjust and whether support/job placement services are adapting well or failing.

I’m actually trying to do just that for a current article and know the challenges of veering away from sentimentality. but doing so ensures that there’s a greater degree of truth in the article.

While I think the article will not necessarily be “happy,” I think there’s merit to balancing out gloom with equal moments of brightness and success in such articles.