Humanizing the News

Cold, detached, seemingly unbiased, straight from the prompter-those are our news reporters. Correction, those were our news reporters before hurricane Katrina. Emotion in a newscast is often lacking. It’s so rare that we can pinpoint those moments that our trusty steady newsmen have broken down- Walter Cronkite with the shooting of JFK, Peter Jennings during 9/11.

Yet now, the horrors of this mass tragedy have broken down the starched collars of professionalism giving way to tears, anguish, even anger. Jeanne Meserve breaking down into tears while reporting about seeing bodies floating the night after the levees broke or Anderson Cooper not letting federal officials run around the hard questions, talking about the rats eating bodies next to him.

Objectivity went out the window as the people left behind in New Orleans without relief began to get angrier. Our once unflappable news reporters and anchors began to get angry. The people’s questions on the streets of New Orleans were now filtered directly to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Once organized dignified press conferences became shouting matches where reporters demanded answers.

The news profession stopped just reporting the news and started embodying humanity.

Where once they would report on relief efforts, now they were acting to assist them, pointing out where survivors were, creating online registries, hosting benefits. A change occurred in this profession.

What effect this will have on future disaster coverage, current political coverage, or even future regular events reporting this may have, it is not clear. But one thing is true, the media changed during this disaster, humanizing itself for the rest of the nation.