An old lady rang Tony Delroy’s late-night program on ABC Radio after midnight on Tuesday with a complaint. She was a contestant in his popular quiz, and before she tried to answer a general knowledge question, she chatted with Delroy about how fed up she was with the saturation coverage the Christchurch earthquake was receiving.
She said she couldn’t believe that most of the free to air television stations had interrupted their regular programming to run continuous coverage of this event. She was upset that her usual soaps and game shows weren’t on. It’s probably not as upsetting as being in a massive earthquake, but there you go.
It struck me as a selfish and heartless complaint. But perhaps this old lady had an acutely-developed sense of that natural human repulsion towards tragedy.
It is something which the media grapples with all the time. What images can and cannot be shown? And at what point should saturation coverage of a disaster become routine coverage, so as to avoid distressing readers, and looking as if you are milking tragedy in a quest for sales?
For cynics who would laugh off the idea of the media grappling with such questions, I’d say that I have known many people who have left journalism, briefly or in some cases permanently, after covering horrific crimes, court cases, natural disasters or acts of terror. I know many people who continue to work in the media, particularly photographic editors, who spend much of their time trying to mentally erase the raw images they have seen on the wires which would never be deemed suitable for publication by any media in this country.
That’s not an attempt to elicit pity. Nor is it an attempt to suggest that the demands of covering a horrific event are even remotely comparable to the reality of actually being in one.
But the reality is that people in the media do not salivate or celebrate at the prospect of disaster. It’s a myth, too, that such events always increase audience. In some cases they might – for example, when they directly affect a community – but there is no sense that this week’s earthquake in New Zealand, as with so many other international disasters, would have any real impact on sales.
Rather, the view is that it’s a huge and tragic event, involving close neighbours, great friends and allies, and as such we should cover it expansively and humanely. You don’t even think about the audience in terms of their numbers, but in terms of their expectations.
One example from my experience was the Waterfall train disaster just south of Sydney in 2003, in which seven people died. Sales of all newspapers went up at the time. This didn’t suggest that the people who bought them were rubber-neckers or that the people who produced them were driven by a lust for circulation. It reflected the fact that tens of thousands of people in Sydney catch the train to and from work every day, and that what we had on our hands was the most massive example of government failure, and it needed to be attacked with maximum space and vigour. It was the subject of a judicial inquiry and it led to a raft of changes to train safety.
There’s been some commentary this week – perhaps fuelled by the fact that the media does not have the power to alter the behaviour of tectonic plates – that the coverage of the Christchurch earthquake has been uniformly prurient and worthless.
The first problem with this view is that it dismisses the core role of the media in simply recording major events, the rough cut of history as the saying goes.
The second is that it ignores the cumulative importance of years of asking questions about how we best prepare for, and respond, to natural disasters.
The third is that the coverage is the most powerful possible driver for collective displays of humanity, as demonstrated by the surge in donations to the Queensland Flood and Cyclone Appeal in the aftermath of those two terrible events.
The fourth is that it ties people together as a community, and at every level, and gives them a chance to empathise.
The strangest piece I have read this week dismisses all four of these roles, and strangely enough it was written by a fellow journalist, Jonathan Green, who edits the ABC’s website The Drum.
Green took issue with the use of photographs by News Limited and Fairfax newspapers, the first of which depicted a family being told that their mother was dead, the second a man being freed from rubble. Green ignored the fact that comparable images were shown on TV by the national broadcaster – maybe it doesn’t matter as much that way, given you only see them quickly.
Green’s final bleak assessment was that the earthquake victims depicted in these newspaper photographs had been “used and forgotten”.
“That’s the sad truth in these things: that the media does not empathise. The media is not there to help. The media does not feel your pain.”
I’d say that remark is more a reflection on Jonathan Green than the media. Any journalist who doesn’t have a sense of empathy should not be in the business. At the same time, it’s hard to see why any journalist with Green’s jaundiced view of the media would choose to remain gainfully employed there.
penberthyd@thepunch.com.au
Facebook Recommendations
Read all about it
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
In my sports column on The Punch tomorrow: why Eurovision was easily the best game on the weekend. Mummy bloggers, you'll like this one!
Recent posts
The latest and greatest
Abbott’s crass logic: trash the Parliament in order save it
An email was sent to almost every politician in Australia this week saying that someone should cut off…
Our special forces don’t always need special treatment
We admire them, but we’re not entirely sure why. We allow them to operate in the shadows; we rarely…
A good holiday is about unrest, not rest
Like a fat full-stop, it lay in my hand. A small orange – not exactly fresh, but purchased anyway…
Nosebleed Section
choice ringside rantings
From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
Michael S says:
"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone
Change Up! says:
I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more
Most commented