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Originally Posted by ShaniFaye
well it just goes to show there is more than one opinion for every side of a story...good on you for helping when you can. I personally would rather read about the help people are getting from those around them, rather than see photographs of people having to huddle on the sidewalk while the storm is coming in....but thats just one southern girl who has lived thru MANY tornado's in her 37 years and had to watch media stand around drinking coffee and trying to keep their hair dry while people around them are hurt and devastated...little ole opinion. Im sure if all media people were like you....natural disasters would be a little easier on some people
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In the tornados, were rescue personnel in the area? Were the hurt/devastated people hurt in any way that the media people on scene could help with? When I've covered tornados, there's only so much I've been able to do - You obviously can't help the ones who died. The ones who are badly hurt, I frankly have NO clue how to help them. I do know, however, that if I screw up by trying I could kill them, so I leave them to EMS. The ones who aren't badly hurt, well they don't need much help in the way of first aid. Anything they can use that's in my (rather extensive) first aid kit in my truck, they get.
As for the devastated people, a mentor of mine always said you have to know when to put the camera down and give someone a hug. I've always believed that. Sure, there are callous reporters out there who delight in the "big news story" but they are NOT representative of the media as a whole. (edit) I'll ammend that a bit. They're not representative of reporters and photographers and the other people that get out in the field every day and understand that behind every story is a person. Some of the bosses who sit in their office every day wishing for a bit of hard news, yeah, they'll be pretty callous. That usually changes if you get 'em to come out with you though and they see that people are more than pictures on a TV set.
And as an aside, those reporters don't get as good of a story either. I can't count the number of tornados that I've covered where I've put the camera down, been there for people (usually I get there just minutes after the tornado went through, and people are scared out of their mind) talked with 'em off and on for several hours making sure they're OK. And guess what? That person almost 100% of the time agrees to an interview with me, but not with my competitors who are busy drooling over the debris. So not only am I doing the right thing (which I'd do no matter what the consequences) but I'm also getting the story on MY air when the competitors can't get it
And I still say in this situation, there's just not a whole lot anyone can do unless they're very specially trained and have a lot of specialized equipment that the media just doesn't have. Hell even the professional rescuers are having one hell of a time with their task.
I said before that I've covered a lot of hurricanes (not covering this one because I'm no longer at a station down in that area) but I've NEVER seen damage like this. The gulf coast looks more like a demilitarized 3rd world country than anything else from what I've seen.
I do know a lot of the guys down there covering this, and I guarantee most of them would drop the camera in the middle of a live shot (one of the bigger no-no's in my industry) if they thought they could save someone's life.