Virginia Tech Shooting: Journalists, Tact and Crises

what happened to journalists going to the scene itself & doing investigative reporting?
the student may or may not have even been there.

i've been keeping track of this all day.

it's just so sad what happened so these kids just trying to go to school and get an education

Veronica,

The blogger posted video and a detailed personal account (filled with the sort of randomness one would expect). Journalist, meanwhile, is from the CBC -- I hardly expect the CBC to have someone close to that location.

I used to work in the Computer Assisted Reporting unit of the Associated Press. All types of research matter.

Great insight Racheline! I'm posting a link to this article off the article on what is being termed "the VA Tech massacre" now being featured on the Gather.com home page.

FYI, the article I'm referring to is Virginia Tech Rampage...this does not make sense!?

wait a sec, what are you referring to in my article?

Journalists have the responsibility to get the story correct. And, they should report any story with tact and decency - period.

Joe N., I'm merely referring to Livejournal drama, haven't read your piece yet.

You're pointing out the obvious again. It's a good thing. Keep it up.

I think the problem here is that people are confusing "tact" with "ethics". It's easy to do, because there can be overlap. It's also easy to do because we live in a society of enforced politeness. I think the "tactful" thing to do if contacting this LJer would be to 1) do it in private 2) express sympathy with what they've gone through and 3) not badger. I did all of this recently when trying to get an interview from someone who told me they had no comment on a sensitive issue. It would have been "tactful" not to have contacted them at all. It was ethical not to force them or threaten, and to do my best to write the article in a non-biased way against them -- not editorializing or including conjecture as to why they wouldn't speak.

On the other hand, I expect people to be upset. Emotionalism is high right now, and people for some reason just have a hate-on for the "media" (whatever that means!). They'll bite with little provocation.

I'd feel a little better if I'd seen much evidence of badgering. What I got instead sounded like every student with a cell phone lining up to tell CNN or MSNBC their impressions of the event, and a few of the more telegenic ones featured on all three networks' evening news. No one knows more than the most basic facts yet, and even those may change (remember the early reporting on Sept. 11?), but many people seemed overly eager to discuss their brush with tragedy.

Many people process the emotions that come after such tragedies by talking about it. So, I imagine a blog site would really be a hot bed of all kinds of emotions today.

A related though, though a different subject really: When I was young, the reporters used to get the story, the real story, and the audience was patient, waiting to hear the facts, not speculation. I DO remember 911 and the misinformation that went around because journalists/reporters would get a piece of info and report it without having the time to check it out. I don't think this is an improvement. I think the ethics of journalism would mean that before you report it, you make sure you know what the story is. I really wish our society would take a step backwards in this respect.

I have no problem with journalists asking those involved, even peripherally involved, questions involving the event itself. What disgusts and annoys me are the "How did you feel?" questions. I cannot consider this sort of thing as 'news'. "How did you feel when your entire family was eaten by wolverines?" "Well, I felt sad." "But how sad? Really sad?" "Yes, really, really sad. I hope it never happens again." What possible use is information about the feelings of a victim? 'Human interest' generally boils down to slowing on the freeway to stare at an auto wreck. How much blood is there? Any body parts? Does it actually 'bring us together' to know that after an event of this sort, those who suffer loss will be unhappy in varying degrees? Five thousand years of human history, and several hundred thousand more of human existence, have not already done this? Will somebody explain to me what good it does to badger victims about their personal feelings? Is it meant to help me when my family is eaten by crocodiles? I don't get it.

Another annoyance is the compulsion to bring us information before it's known. The endless explanations of "authorities originally believed..." are too often in reality "we asked the authorities before they knew for sure..."; getting material into the news cycle as quickly as possible is evidently more valuable in terms of advertising revenues, career advancement, etc. than getting it right.

Not many people are not used to the media's ways.
I'm only bothered when reporters don't get the big, difficult stories.
Like why Bush and Cheney are quite satisfied with how Iraq has gone so far.

That's no big, difficult story. Things are going great in Iraq!. Couldn't be better. How about them Padres? And "American Idol"; there's a story! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

In my experience news reporters have about as much tact as a Mack truck slamming into a VW beetle. Although I have to say that the national reporters have at least a modicum of tact compared to the small city reporters I have seen who show up can't find a story so they just start manufacturing news on their own. Its sickening.

It's all part of the big, wide wonderful world of ENTERTAINMENT!!!

The "how it's going in Iraq" that I meant is, oil prices went way up and stayed way up with the Iraq war. A lot of Iraqi oil has been kept off the market. Follow the dollars.

Cherchez la moolah; exactly. War is always good for business, especially the oil business. Pipelines get bombed; oil prices go up. Pipelines get tapped and oil stolen; oil prices go up. And consider: what kind of mileage does even a insufficiently armored Humvee get? How many of them are rolling around Iraq? And are they using Iraqi-produced petroleum (or "patroleum" as I originally typed it; somehow more fitting here, I think)? I doubt it; it's probably being shipped in from somewhere else at wondrously high prices.) Plus the day-to-day 'scare factor' which is usually the single most important thing which drives petroleum and petroleum futures pricing. Remember CJ & the Fish on 'my' war: "there's plenty good money to be made, supplying the Army with the tools of their trade". I have no gripe with supplying the forces with what they need (including, and soon I hope, tickets home); but war profiteering Halliburton-style make me sick to my stomach.