Shooting in Newtown, CT

There’s this feeling I get from holding a camera for most of my life. This feeling that tells me, in this sort of quiet but persistent way that I am responsible for capturing the moments I am experiencing. It starts with the desire to get into Journalism, then festers in the urge to illuminate and to educate the public. The feeling grows with an understanding of government and the relation between reporting and democracy in America. It is pure in its development, organic in its existence. Yet somehow, being here in Newtown, CT after the shooting that claimed the lives of 20 children, 6 adults and the gunman makes me feel like I might be on the wrong side of things with a camera attached to my hand. 

While I watched people kneel at the base of a memorial comprised of teddy bears, candles and balloons my mind told me to pull up my camera, my heart told me not to, my stomach crumbled with the tension of the two and stayed in knots.While I ultimately feel that the media coverage in times of tragedy is vital to our country, there is no denying that it is deeply disconcerting witnessing a plethora of cameramen in the face of a town that is mourning the loss of 20 children under the age of ten years old. There is something unnerving that exists in the juxtaposition of wires, satellites and sound checks with memorials filled with teddy bears, legos and balloons. It would be easy for me to look at the camera person with animosity, to state that they are exploiting the overwhelming pain of a broken town. But I know the feeling, I know it all too well. It is the feeling that makes me want to jump in front of someone to get a shot of a woman weeping at the feet of a teddy bear as she mourns the loss of a small child to a crazed shooter. It tells me I need to capture this moment, it does not think about her need to have the moment organically without my intrusion. It itches down my skin and through my fingers, and it does not go away even if I leave my camera at home.

What you have to understand is that we are here to do a job, a job that our heart and souls believe in. We do it because we have faith in the concept of Journalism to ignite change and create positivity. But in a world where the media is faltering in its ethics, while being saturated in sensationalism I fear that I am a part of the problem, not the solution.

See, I am trained to get the shot. Journalism is an industry based only on product, based on getting the damn shot. It is within the robotic nature of news coverage that humanity seems to be lost. There is a disconnect that occurs when the person in front of me moves from a human being I see with my eyes, to an object of focus for the frame of my camera. I can provide coverage in the most respectful and dignified way possible, but that disconnect will always exist. I cannot deny that, no matter how much I would like to.

As I watch a woman from channel 4 news sweetly ask a family for an interview, as I see her bend down to direct her questions to the little girl I wonder why we are so inclined to highlight young children as if the nature of the event doesn’t instigate enough sadness within itself. As if 27 dead people, the majority of whom are under 10 years old isn’t enough of a headliner for news conglomerates, we decide to include the image of a crying child. 

I spent some time talking to people about their feelings on the overwhelming amount of media that is pouring into this little town, overtaking its streets, businesses and buildings. I spoke to a man who I met as he was holding his son’s hand and sweetly telling him he could go up and look at the memorial closer if he wanted to. His son is eight years old and goes to the school where the surviving children from Sandy Hook elementary school will be attending for the upcoming weeks. He told me he was okay with the media being there, that people just needed someone to talk to. He expressed his anxiety for how the town would cope once everyone left, once it was again just the town by itself attempting to pick up the pieces in the wake of the tragedy.
It makes me feel better that my presence is possibly less intrusive than I initially thought. But the amount of people that have shied away from my questions, or who have tearfully pushed passed camera crews keeps my skepticism in tact. As Journalists, what are we actually doing for the people of this town aside from invading their space? Are we providing false hope to the people of the town? Are we actually supporting, or simply using these people in their very personal moments of grief?
On the local level of media ethics I suggest the following steps could be taken. We should not be interviewing children, we should not be shoving our cameras in the faces of weeping people and we should not try and coerce people into talking when they say that they don’t want to talk to us. Aside from the fact that it is intrusive it does not provide the country with beneficial information. While seeing a little girl cry over gunshots clearly communicates the tone of sadness in the town, it is simply not Journalism. It is an over indulgence in the pain of this community without tact or discretion, and it sums up the state of media today.
It would be easy to sum this up by saying that the people working in news need to act more delicately, or that they are simply unethical. But the issue is much larger. The issue exists in the fact that as a Journalist I am trained to jump at the sight of someone’s very personal pain in the name of democracy and Journalism, when it is really in the name of selling a product.
What it comes down to is my belief in the following statement: if you want to see changes in media, become a part of the media. But my heart will forever be torn as my head wins in the battle to make me pick up my camera and shoot. Until the field I pour my heart into revitalizes its ethics, the knots in my stomach will stay in tact.