When journalists push too far

As a trained journalist myself, I think it’s fair to comment on the media at least once every 50 years. I’ve seen it many times in my life, so in some ways today is just another episode. As a grieving public watches the tragic events of the Boston Marathon unfold, we want to know what has happened, and a good journalist can gather information and help a nation to understand and feel the effects of the stories, both large and small that are part of such an event. I’ll even go so far as to say that good journalism can help us feel with others, and even begin to heal from trauma as news stories start conversations at home, at school, at work, and in the community.  And conversation is a critical component of grief work, healing from trauma, and moving forward with wisdom and courage.

That being said, when journalists push too far, they actually re-traumatize victims and make private grief brutal, public, and cheap. Victims of the Boston bombings don’t only include the dead and wounded, but also devastated families, every single runner, every officer, volunteer, firefighter, EMS worker, nurse and physician who treated ghastly wounds, every single person who saw and heard and felt the blasts…which would now include every single person who has watched the video, saw the photos, viewed the blogs, listened to the police scanner, etc. National trauma reaches its victims all over the world. Even the journalists, who don’t like to admit it, are victims. You cannot see and feel graphic trauma and escape unscathed. You can only pretend to do that.

Perhaps that hardening and shutting down creates scenarios like some I have seen today where journalists simply begin to push too hard and too far. Today I have seen a news conference of a grieving mother who just lost her 29-year-old daughter. Why was that necessary? A question was shouted out from the crowd of journalists after she sobbed her way through the statement and turned to leave: “what kind of daughter was she?” What kind of question is that, and who is so hard-hearted as to multiply her grief today, or ever? She’s already answered it with every choked word and tear. Today I have heard journalists questioning who was to blame for the mix up at the hospital where her parents were told she was alive only to find out she wasn’t. “What does the hospital have to say about that?” was the question posed by the national anchor. Where is his common sense and compassion for the medical personnel who treated 175 wounded, bleeding, in some cases ripped apart human beings? That only three lives were lost is a testimony to the quick reaction of the people on the ground, including medical personnel. I am reminded of a life lost only a few months ago after the media made a fool of a young nurse in Great Britain. Do we really need to press the people who are busy saving lives to the mat to answer our demands for what went wrong? Don’t we trust that the people whose calling it is to save lives will care enough to analyze their process when it is time to reflect?

Finally, I have seen this morning an interview with the roommate of the man whose apartment was searched by the police. Fine if he wants to talk to reporters. I have no problem with that, but as the interview went on, the journalism got sketchier. Obviously, English is not his first language and he is struggling to make sense of the questions. The same question is asked over and over with a sort of feeding-frenzy feel from the reporters. When he backs away from answering a question, he is taunted, “you mean you don’t know what your apartment looks like?” Suddenly the reporters aren’t reporting the news, they are trying to make it, and it doesn’t look like they really care what news they make.

The news I think they made this morning is that in the aftershocks of national trauma, while the story is still very big and hot, the news media can lose their sense of propriety, their sense of being human too. Attempts to make the news instead of report it increase the level of anxiety and trauma already rolling over us like waves.