Our
View: Belligerent TV reporters detrimental
We’ve
all seen the sneaky broadcast reporter
hiding in the bushes outside some business
or home, waiting for an unsuspecting
target to come into sight and bludgeon
him or her with nosey questions on TV
news. Although it makes great television,
seeing people scream, cry or show passionate
outrage at the insensitivity of some
reporters, this intrusive journalism
is hurting both the public and the journalism
reputation as a whole.
As journalists, these reporters have an obligation to present new, interesting
and insightful information to the masses.
Surprising people and attacking them with irrelevant and irreverent questions
often creates a deer-in-the-headlights effect; potential interviewees immediately
become defensive and evade reporter’s questions. It is this evasive,
and even sometimes raging, behavior that many broadcast journalists seek when
chasing down a man whose family was just killed in a fire.
The sad fact is TV news is progressing less in the areas of hard news and fact-finding
and has begun to move into the field of entertainment. Rather than ask thought-provoking
questions to the people they interview, many reporters have decided to focus
their attention on eliciting loud, emotional and often irrational responses
from people.
Also, these emotional conflicts in broadcast interviews are extremely demeaning
to the public. Rather than presenting the masses with the intelligent aspects
of news, these reporters try to entertain us with petty arguments between interviewees
and reporters. By creating these contrived situations, reporters are essentially
saying the public isn’t intelligent enough to comprehend the complexities
of news and instead they entertain us with trashy television.
Instead of fulfilling their duty to find important information and objectively
relate it back to the public, these journalists too often sensationalize routine
stories. The public relies on the media to know what is happening in the world
around them, especially televised news. The shove-a-microphone-under-your-nose
kind of reporting creates barriers and eliminates any possibility of intelligent
discussion.
Journalism as a whole is suffering the consequences of this lack of professionalism.
The term “nosey reporter” is becoming more frequently used to describe
journalists and too often people are deterred from talking to journalists for
fear they will be assaulted with inappropriate and personal questions.
There is a fine line between reporting important information and being persistent
in obtaining this information and reporting superfluous garbage acquired in
an inappropriate manner. Although this distinction is one of the most difficult
aspects of journalism, it is necessary.
Another essential aspect noticeably absent from many investigative reporters
is compassion. No job, inside or outside of journalism, should conflict with
one’s ability to be respectful towards others. Basic human dignity should
always be a primary concern while covering a story. While many reporters may
contest they are only being tenacious in acquiring information, this tenacity
often escalates into inappropriate badgering and rudeness.
Too often we hear reporters asking insensitive questions like, “Your
child was just hit by a bus. How do you feel?” or “Your family
just burned to death in a fire. Do you feel responsible?” Rather than
trying to capture a weeping mother, journalists need to show compassion and
act tastefully.
As young news consumers and potential reporters, we possess the possibility
of changing these disrespectful methods of reporting. By writing letters to
the editor, boycotting exaggerated news pieces and using different methods
while covering a story we can create news that is both more respectful toward
the interviewees and creates intelligent discourse among opposing ideas.
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