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24-Hour News and the Sniper
By Al
Ruechel | 10-24-02
Wow. Are folks upset with 24-hour
cable news or what? Hey, news isn’t the enemy the sniper is; Saddam
is; the economy is; the bad guys are. Lay off already!
Up front you need to know I work for a 24-hour news station as an
anchor. It’s local 24-hour news so fortunately we don’t fall into
the same trap as the cable network news organizations. Often times
though we find ourselves trying to follow a breaking news story
where the facts are changing so rapidly it’s almost impossible to
keep up with them.
We have moments of brilliance and incredible significance such as
the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We can help
calm viewers fears by bringing them the latest on the weather and
help direct them to safety away from traffic accidents or into
action to help those in need.
But we also have our days when it looks like we are totally
incompetent or uncaring or stumbling to fill time: such is the case
with the DC sniper.
Here’s why we look that way. In about 60 percent of the cases the
information coming to us from the scene in the first ten minutes of
any event is inaccurate. Witnesses who call us or talk to reporters
are viewing an event from different angles. What sounds like a huge
explosion to one person may sound like a pop or a firecracker to
another. When the women was shot outside the Home Depot in the DC
area we got several descriptions of potential suspects and vehicles.
We even had a nut case coming forward with incredible details of the
shooter and van he was driver. Problem was, the guy was inside the
Home Depot at the time of the shooting. The end result was that
police had to abandon the descriptions because they didn’t match.
Some of the information we get comes from police scanners where
officers or paramedics are giving their first visual impression of
what’s happening. I remember once when the first units to arrive on
the scene of a ship fire called for dozens of backups because he
thought the ship was sinking and feared for the passengers. Great,
except the ship had been empty for months and had been listing to on
side for weeks while it was being repaired. The officer was new to
the area and had no idea.
Then there was the crash of a local medical helicopter. The
dispatcher called it a crash. A half dozen eyewitnesses reported
seeing a ball of fire in the sky. A state trooper radioed for help
because he said the chopper had CRASHED on the interstate. We
reported it as a crash only to find out 20 minutes later the chopper
had made what’s called a hard landing. The engine had caught on
fire. There was a ball of fire in the sky and the chopper did go
down. But hard landings are not all that uncommon with choppers and
no one was injured.
We were caught in the information gap. That’s the time when you hear
or know something has happened but don’t have a lot of details. When
we say details are sketchy we mean the information we are getting
could be wrong and there are lots of gaps that could change the
nature of this story. And as long as you demand and want instant
information it’s just something you are going to have to live with.
It comes with the territory. We do are best but we know we aren’t
perfect.
Now generally news organizations try to get confirmation through
another source, namely a spokesperson for the police or hospital
where the patient is being treated before hitting the air. Sometimes
those folks are the last to know what’s happening and they are
infamous are waiting for what seems like decades to release any
information that could clear up the picture.
The biggest enemy we face is time. It just takes time for us to get
the whole picture, for law enforcement to piece together the puzzle.
The clock is ticking though and viewers want to know what’s going
on. And, yes, journalists are driven by a desire to beat the
competition with the latest.
The other time enemy is being on the air 24/7. Cable news ticks
people off when they start speculating and filling time with an
endless series of analysts who dissect every possible “what if”
scenario. The information gap, which is the natural timeline for
investigating any event, is crammed with experts who must know what
they’re talking about even though, in reality, they don’t know
anymore than the anchor who is asking the questions. Trust me, I’ve
been there.
Then when you add those graphics and titles and animated explosions
and dramatic music that you’ve come to expect hour after hour after
hour it does lead to sensory overload. Hey, even I have to turn it
off at times to get my bearings straight.
Here’ the bottom line. When you watch 24 hour live cable news
covering breaking events it is always a work in progress. For better
and often times worse you are watching the information gathering
process “live”. It is not an exact science. You can couch your words
with as many qualifiers as possible and people are still going to
make conclusions based on their interpretation of the information
you present. Heck, you can even debate whether or not any of this
information gathering should be aired… period. Most would say in a
free society it MUST be aired. Yet, some folks blame the media for
giving the sniper clues as to where he should strike next.
You give TV too much credit and too much power. TV news is not
reality. It’s a compressed or expanded glance at one particular
event or a series of events that everyone is interested in. The
sniper is going crazy and it does affect a lot of folks. The reality
is that for 99.6 percent of the American population life goes on as
normal. News doesn’t show that because that’s not what news is by
definition. Show me nothing happening and nobody cares and nobody
watches and the ads aren’t sold and the bills don’t get paid.
Nothing is simple in life, not the sniper, not our reaction to him,
and certainly not the news process that struggles at times trying to
cover the senseless slaughter.
Al Ruechel, copyright 2002, all
rights reserved
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