Current Release: September 11th, 2007 | Vol. XXIV Iss. 10

Choices

By Jeni Meyers

By Elizabeth Appleyard

eaappleyard@vwc.edu

jlmeyers@vwc.edu

When you’re up against a wall, and life throws you to a crossroads with one side leading you to fame and glory and the other giving you internal satisfaction, what path will you choose?

Suppose you are a reporter sent on assignment; you go to cover a story, and all of a sudden your subject gets into an altercation and needs assistance. As a reporter, what road do you choose? If you choose to stay behind the camera, you potentially have an opportunity to get ahead in work; capturing rare footage could put you on the map as a great reporter. On the flip side you could jump in and save the subject, but then you run the risk of losing a great story; however, you have successfully saved someone’s life. In return you receive a handshake and maybe a small write-up in a local paper, but you are nowhere close to Super Reporter. The question is: When is it OK to be professional and do your job, and when is it OK to break professionalism and be a human being?

The answer in this case should be a no- brainier, but for some it may take a brain to answer the question.

Prestige and fortune are held high in some people’s eyes. Unless they are on the front cover of every magazine and their name is spoken in every household, some just don’t feel as though they have achieved greatness; so what happens when they are in a situation of life and death do they choose their own life or another’s? That is not an easy question to ask anyone. But in a less dramatic form: When are you able to stop reporting and begin comforting? Does it get in the way of your job as a reporter? And where, exactly, is the line you’re supposed to draw between professionalism and humanity?

What we’re getting at is, do you save the guy or run the story- a story that could potentially be damaging?

As reporters we are constantly threatened with the decision to run or not to run an article, but before that article is even formed there is a line that is drawn. To comfort or to destroy? That is the question.