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When covering aviation disasters, details and understanding matter

3/10/2014

5 Comments

 
Picture
A collection of images used by various newsrooms to illustrate the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, none of which show the correct aircraft.
If you happened to scroll through Twitter, open your Facebook app, or log onto any one of dozens of major news sites in the hours after MH370 lost contact with ATC last week, you would have been led to believe that an A320, 737, 747, or even an A380 superjumbo was missing. In fact none of that was true. But the hastily-posted graphics which accompanied stories on the incident would have led you to believe otherwise.

Granted, to the lay observer who knows little about aviation, most of the airliners on the tarmac at an airport look the same and therefore the graphics and photos of aircraft other than a 777-200ER seemed appropriate. But accuracy matters, particularly during breaking news when everyone is racing to get their info out first and stories are going viral on social media.

My point is this -- if you were doing a story about a Honda recall, you wouldn’t post a photo of a Ford. It’s not hard to find a stock photo of a 777. Heck, if you aren’t sure of the aircraft type, you could even just use the airline’s logo and later replace it with something more compelling and accurate.

Pictures of anguish may exacerbate the pain

Three days after the disappearance, I’m still seeing images on social media showing panicked families arriving at the airport in Beijing, having learned that their loved ones may never return home.

In that moment when the shutter clicked, those people (moms, dads, sisters, brothers, and children) were experiencing what was without question the most heart-wrenching moment of their lives.

The photos tell an important story and illustrate the confusion and anguish that exists in the immediate wake of an aviation disaster; however they should be used with great care and perhaps not attached to every single update a newsroom publishes on the investigation.

I recently read about the mother of a victim of the 1989 Pan Am 103 bombing, who was shown in news video the night of the disaster writhing in agony on the floor of the terminal at JFK screaming for her “baby.” She fell to pieces in front of a crush of TV cameras and her pain was broadcast worldwide. It is an intensely painful clip, which can still be viewed on YouTube. The woman later told a journalist that she felt the photographers and reporters capturing her anguish that night were barbaric, lacking compassion and humanity.

Yes, the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states that first and foremost reporters should “seek truth and report it,” but immediately following that the code says to “minimize harm.” It is a careful and tricky balance to follow both of those when covering an aviation disaster, but it can and should be done.

5 Comments
Mike
3/10/2014 12:39:48 pm

Good post. I also think hokey analogies in tragedy stories are less than classy. CNN had a story that started with something like "the mystery of what happened to the Malaysian airlines jets is as vast as the ocean it was flying over."

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Tim Akimoff link
3/10/2014 02:36:58 pm

I think the conspiracy theory stiff floating around and being passed around by some legitimate news orgs is dangerous. Better to have sources like this which are dedicated to a deeper knowledge of a particular industry. Happy to see you starting this up.

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Tom Lindner
3/10/2014 03:14:45 pm

Well done, Ted. You clearly outline the key points journalists and their bosses need to remember when covering events with such strong emotional images and impact. Compassion still matters.
Some years ago in NY a reporter went up to a woman whose child had been killed and asked her how she was feeling. They recorded her wails of pain and put it on the air. When they cut back to Anchor Tom Snyder, he was beyond stunned and immediately apologized to anyone who was forced to watch what just happened.

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LP
3/10/2014 04:09:31 pm

Being in the Airline industry it's hard to believe no sign yet. The beacon signal lasts for 30 day, which is not showing now.
I am starting to believe it was an act of terriosm & it blew up into a million pieces & will be very hard to find.

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Katie Nielsen
3/10/2014 05:33:51 pm

Ted, so well said. This reminds me of the conversation we had in the newsroom in Reno about the coverage of the 9/11 anniversary. In that moment, I knew you "got it". So great to see you taking the time to put your thoughts out there for others, and hopefully for a moment make someone pause and question their own actions and motivations. Well done.

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