Media: Friend or Foe
Television is great for getting information out to the public, to a point. It is great for letting us know about where the traffic is or what they think that the weather will be.
We need to keep what we watch and how much into check. There are some news junkies or media junkies who have to watch media for what traumatic things happened all around the world that never effects their life. These people may watch things so much that they think they are experts on the event.
I have been at disasters where we had to set up shelters to take care of the people effected by the actual event. We did not permit any television in there because we needed to protect the people from what the media had speculated happened, responsibilities and more. The media puts out information, at times, without checking facts or waiting for people to do an official notification. We had a person who walked into a shelter and announced a child's death. The person only heard rumors around the scene. Were the family members ever notified? Did the public information officer ever have the chance to make the notification with the appropriate resources standing by? No, this individual thought he was the news reporter.
When I used to talk with new people, I would say that a good call would be where everyone comes home and nobody shows up on social media. Right now, almost everyone can and do make themselves reporters. They film whatever they want. Some people say freedom of the press but they are not responsible. There are people who avoid HIPAA laws and common decency. It's bad enough that emergency responders have to see the horrors that are in the streets, that we accept it as just another day. Why do others think that it is alright to expose others to the trauma that we have to see?
There are also emergency responders who are irresponsible that instead of working the scene, they are filming it and posting it on social media or giving the video to television stations. They have not social responsibility. Many times these people do not know that they are also exposing their department and others open to lawsuits.
I remember a fire instructor who was showing a video to other instructors a fire that he was at where five children died as a result. The instructor kept saying how good this fire was. I asked the instructor to shut it off and have some respect for the dead. He refused saying that it was a good fire. I asked if he had to work with the family as each child died. I told him that any fire that takes five innocent lives is not a "good fire". It took the senior fire instructor to tell him that if the chaplain asks you not to show it, have some respect.
How many times did we have to watch the planes fly into the towers? How many people around the world were traumatized, when they did not know anyone in the buildings of have any connection to the areas? I know that others will think differently but they do not think about trauma effect innocent lives.
When we went to fires and disasters, we would not know everything that was going on. We would just focus on our assignment because many times that was all the information that we received, even if we were listening to the scanner. Sometimes we only found out what happened what happened and who responder, by reading the newspaper or the television the day after.
When talking to people about what they see at certain incidents, I mention not to talk about it on scene. Not to talk about it in the apparatus. The place that it should be discussed is at the station with the shades drawn down, doors shut and only people that you trust in the room. You never know who is catching what on video and what technology that they have.
Each individual has a responsibility of what they record, post and also put into their brain by watching it. There is so much trauma on television and other media. We have to be good stewards of what we say and what we put into our brains.
People say that they have freedom of speech or freedom of the press but that does not give you freedom of the consequences for the words that are spoken or made public.
You deserve not to be exposed to trauma that was not in your life. Take care of yourself.
Stay safe,
Didymus McHugh
didymus-mchugh.com
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