Ever since the Haiti disaster happened, I have been following the unfolding events non-stop through TV news networks, newspapers’ Web sites, citizen journalism platforms and Twitter. The coverage, I have noticed, has crossed the line of professional journalism with reporters expressing their emotions and news networks exploiting the misery of the victims to raise ratings.
I agree with many people that reporters are human and that it’s very hard to not be so when you cover disasters. I was one of those who, for three years, covered a bloody war where dead bodies and explosions were a daily scene.
Lately, CNN has been playing with the viewers emotions more than providing them with the information, just like Fox News’ coverage of the teabaggers’ demonstrations. Yesterday, the Huffington Post tweeted that Anderson Cooper was caught on Camera helping a bloody child. Before that, Sanjay Gupta is shown performing surgery. Now, this is human, but is it journalism? I don’t think so!
I like both reporters a lot and have been watching their reports for a long time, but this time they kind of appear not as reporters but as someone working for the Red Cross or the Salvation Army.
I think when the reporter becomes part of the story, the actual information is changed. I covered a war and came across people who were suffering, but I did not allow myself to be part of the story because my role was to tell the readers what exactly happened. In the beginning of my career I thought there was something wrong with me. How could I not do something when I saw a child sobbing alone in front of his father’s dead body? By course of time, I understood why. I may have not been there for that kid who might have needed a hug, but I know I had told his story to millions of people, raising a mighty message: there is a war and people are suffering.
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