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Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Credit Where Credit is Due:
Three Cheers for
CNN
SHOULD WE BE BRITISH ABOUT IT ALL? Something I've always wondered about. You're a journalist reporting on a frightful, dangerous situation. Bad things happen around you. When do you throw down the microphone, turn off the cameras, and get involved? Mostly, it seems, journalists don't. Call it a kind of target fascination. The availability of poignant images seems more important as a message than the people to whom real events are occurring. I understand. Up to a point. But I'm not a journalist. I'm always biased in favor of jumping in and hang the damn pictures... If this report is true, then I congratulate CNN's people on the ground in Haiti for being first-rate human beings. All politics aside and no irony or sarcasm implied. Just praise.
Cooper
Carries Injured Child Away from Looting
In two segments airing on "The Situation Room" today, more newsers found themselves stepping beyond their roles as journalists to assist during emergency situations in Haiti.
While reporting on a chaotic scene in the Port-au-Prince streets, Anderson Cooper pulled a young boy with a bloody head injury away a storefront where looters were throwing rocks from above. Cooper aired a more detailed report at the top of "AC360."
In another incident, correspondent Chris Lawrence was returning to the network's base when he and his crew were flagged down by a paramedic who asked to use their truck to transport a 23-year-old university student who had just been rescued from the rubble.
Also, early this morning, CNN's Sanjay Gupta, who is one of the TV doctor's [sic] whose [sic] been pulling double duty as a journalist and medical professional in Haiti, was helicoptered to the USS Carl Vinson to perform brain surgery on a 12-year-old girl.
In two segments airing on "The Situation Room" today, more newsers found themselves stepping beyond their roles as journalists to assist during emergency situations in Haiti.
While reporting on a chaotic scene in the Port-au-Prince streets, Anderson Cooper pulled a young boy with a bloody head injury away a storefront where looters were throwing rocks from above. Cooper aired a more detailed report at the top of "AC360."
In another incident, correspondent Chris Lawrence was returning to the network's base when he and his crew were flagged down by a paramedic who asked to use their truck to transport a 23-year-old university student who had just been rescued from the rubble.
Also, early this morning, CNN's Sanjay Gupta, who is one of the TV doctor's [sic] whose [sic] been pulling double duty as a journalist and medical professional in Haiti, was helicoptered to the USS Carl Vinson to perform brain surgery on a 12-year-old girl.
I hope you're as proud as I am, regardless of CNN's many sins against journalism in recent years. Yes, it might be even more praiseworthy if we'd never heard of it, but then we'd never have heard of it and the example wouldn't have been put out there for others to follow.
I believe everyone on the ground in Haiti should do whatever is possible to save lives and render comfort. But then I've been a sentimental old fool for quite a while now...
