News Media Exploits Mine Tragedy

This past week the American news media’s attention was focused on the mining accident in West Virginia that killed a dozen miners.

While tragedy often brings out the best in people, it almost always brings out the worst in journalism. This is nothing new; it was obvious after the Columbine school shootings, after the September 11 attacks, after the hurricane devastation. The mine accident began as a news story but gradually and subtly became a voyeuristic entertainment event, with hours of emotion instead of information. The accident was turned into several newsmagazine specials, and I’m sure somewhere a screenwriter has already been hired to write the movie-of-the-week script.

While there was some information about the accident, most of the coverage focused and fed on the town’s devastation. There was so much pain and grief and outrage that the journalists couldn’t soak it up fast enough. Hard-working American heroes in the heartland trapped below the earth; especially with the original, wrong report of the miners’ recovery, it was pure TV gold. The news cameras were there to cover the tears, then the cheers, then finally more tears. When one sobbing, then elated neighbor or family member’s tears dried up, reporters moved on to another. Who they were and what they were saying was nearly irrelevant, as long as it filled airtime, was emotional, and could be presented as breaking news. It was crass exploitation, no matter how you dress it up.

ABC Nightly News achieved a low point in the coverage on its January 4 broadcast when co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas went on location to cover the story. In a segment that made any self-respecting journalist cringe, Vargas interviewed a young girl and her mother about gathering at the local church to greet the miners who would never arrive. Forcing the girl to focus on the miner’s loss and deaths, Vargas asked the child, “What were you hoping to do when you went to the church last night?” The girl said she wanted to see the miners, which prompted the apparently clueless anchor to ask, “What were you hoping to say to them?”

Vargas, the audience, and everyone else knew damn well why the girl and the town went to the church that night. The ABC News co-anchor perfectly fit the stereotype of the insensitive, sensationalism-seeking reporter not smart enough to know when enough is enough. What’s amazing to me is that the piece was pre-taped. At no point did an editor or producer have the sense that they had crossed the line. Apparently no one realized they didn’t really need to wring tears from a young girl; they had enough videotape of sobbing victims. It was time to turn off the lights and cameras, leave the devastated families alone, and shut the hell up.

While sticking cameras in pain-crumpled faces smacks of vulture journalism, it’s also true that not all victims are reticent to participate in the tragic coverage. This occurred in the wake of the Columbine tragedy. As Jessica Seigel wrote for her article “Hugging the Spotlight” in the July/August 1999 issue of Brill’s Content magazine, “…[T]hese sources were teenagers, something that was perhaps easy to forget. In interviews after the first rush of terror, they seemed so self-possessed, looking directly into the cameras, spouting pithy sound bites. Garrulous and gossipy, the teens quickly warmed to the undivided attention of so many adults carrying microphones and pens, devouring their every thought and emotion. Soon the kids learned to query reporters, ‘Are you national or local?’”

Here’s how one interview was described, when the Today Show’s Katie Couric interviewed prominent survivor Bree Pasquale: “…Couric, speaking from a studio in Washington, D.C., asked questions clearly intended to elicit a graphic blow-by-blow. Bree listened through an earpiece: ‘What kinds of sounds did you hear, and how did you feel when you heard them?’ Couric asked. ‘They said something particularly callous after they shot Isaiah Shoels. Tell me what they said.’ … After pumping Bree for the gruesome particulars, Couric sounded especially sympathetic and intimate. ‘Bree, I can’t imagine witnessing and hearing these things and being so terrified,’ Couric said. ‘How are you— how are you doing?’”

Couric’s question is typical of much crime and crisis reporting: the question is rarely, “What do you think about this topic,” but almost always, “How did you feel?” While reporting on a subject’s feelings may be legitimate and (slightly) newsworthy, it’s also a lazy reporter’s crutch. Feelings require no fact-checking, no other sides demanding equal time. When there’s little else to air, little forthcoming news, it’s an easy way to fill airtime. Instead of reporting the truth, i.e., “We have nothing new to report, so we’ll move on to other news,” reporter-wrung emotions are used as fodder to fill time.

There’s also an ethical question to be addressed. Sobbing victims may make riveting television, but what about the real people being exploited for the camera? Haven’t most survivors been through enough without being put on the spot in front of cameras and bright lights to describe how they felt in a moment of terror? It’s one thing to intrude on a grieving person to get useful or important information; police must do it all the time. But it’s quite another to intrude for the sake of ratings.

Edward Pinder, an ABC News producer, defends intruding on fresh tragedy: “It’s sad that we have to approach these people and ask them to spill out their guts moments after their loss, but you have to do it.” Pinder’s explanation, however, simply begs the question: Why do you have to do it? If you assume that in-your-face interviews with grieving relatives are necessary for responsible journalism, Pinder’s answer is correct. But if you question that facile assumption, perhaps a different answer would come to light. What purpose is served? Who benefits from the interview, other than the news organization? And what real information is gained, anyway? Grief-chasing reporters seem oblivious to the contradiction inherent in talking about how devastated the mourners are. They are in enough pain to report on—but not so much pain that they can’t relive it for the cameras.

Beyond that, the question of feelings is a rhetorical question. Most people can pretty well guess how a woman would feel when her son or daughter is killed: numbness, pain, and sorrow, maybe mixed with anger. It seems distasteful to have a reporter stick a camera, light, and microphone in a victim’s face to confirm what we already know: that crying victims are devastated and grief-stricken. If the news media has such a surplus of airtime to run this pap, why don’t they use a little of it to provide context and deeper content to more important news stories?

In conclusion, I ask this of Vargas, ABC News, and all the other tragedy-milking, victim-chasing news organizations and journalists:

“Have you no sense of decency?; at long last, have you no sense of decency?”