I used to be a television reporter.  I did the weather on the weekend and then during the week, I worked general news stories.  That included a young African American girl “snipered” while waiting in a fast food drive through (my story at 2:20 of the video), the funerals of victims of the Von Maur shootings (funeral of Gary Joy, interviewed family of Janet Jorgensen – please read what her Grandson told me, interviewed son of Gary Scharf who told me his dad was his best friend, and reported from the home of the shooter on the day of the shooting), covered the attempted suicide of a Christian monk, reported on a mother who locked her handicapped daughter in a bedroom and then a fire started (video of my report), covered a Grandma who was in jail for shoplifting when a fire broke out in her home that killed her daughter and grandchildren, and also reported on the devastation after the Parkersburg, Iowa tornado (video of my report). 

Anyway, all of that brings me to an NPR report I heard driving home from work the other day.  Listen to it here. Or read through it here (which of course lacks the emotion I want you to here):

BLOCK: NPR's Jason Beaubien joins us from Port-au-Prince. Jason, describe where you are right now, please, and what you're seeing.

JASON BEAUBIEN: Right now I'm outside the Villa Creole Hotel, which is in the Petionville neighborhood - an elite neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. And it's really quite amazing, people have brought their injured children out front here because they know that there are medical - Western medical doctors staying inside. So, people have come here to try to get attention for - mainly for their children. There's a girl - I'm sorry. There's a girl right in front of me at the moment. She's covered in bandages. She's laying on just some - what are they - they're from the deck chairs that would be by the pool. She's naked except for what looks like a tablecloth on top of her. And she keeps lifting her head and her lips are shaking.

(Soundbite of crowd)

BEAUBIEN: Sorry, Melissa.

BLOCK: That's okay.

BEAUBIEN: It's heartbreaking what's happening here. And there are people just in the streets everywhere. When you drive through, there are tent cities that have been sort of set up just in little lots. People are clearly just living wherever they can.

BLOCK: Jason, the girl you just described, is she getting any medical attention there?

BEAUBIEN: She clearly has gotten some medical attention because there are fresh bandages on her. And there are other people who are getting medical attention. But the numbers are just so huge that there are people who are waiting for attention. There's clearly the expectation that there are people who are still trapped in some of these buildings.

BLOCK: Does the girl have any family there with her, do you know?

BEAUBIEN: I assume that she has family here, but it's really quite striking. She's lying out in what would just normally be the driveway and there's no one around her.

The reporter, Jason Beaubien, lost his composure and almost broke down during the report.  Of course, I never was in the midst of a tragedy of the same magnitude, but I knew the emotions Jason was feeling.  However, as a soon to be father, I can only imagine the different emotions I would carry now doing some of the stories I did.  (I cried when interviewing a Von Maur family and frankly looking over some of those old stories brought back a lot of emotions.)

What I want to comment on though is some of the feedback listeners gave to the emotion displayed by Beaubien.  One listener stated:

Tony Eads of Oak Park, Illinois didn't like what he heard. He writes: It is utterly inappropriate to showcase a reporter's emotional response to a story. It is sensationalistic, it is unprofessional and most importantly, it is not news.

Reporters are human.  Many have the ability to emotionally disconnect from the story, but some of them don’t always or sometimes it can be an impossibility.  This story was live and unscripted (what in TV would be a “Walk and talk”) and one should never condemn a reporter for being human.  A reporter is better suited when they feel emotions and can use them to deliver a better story.  Empathy is important.

Just remember when you see someone in a terrible situation, that sometimes those reporters are experiencing and looking at terrible things.  Emotion is standard.  Humans are not Vulcans and should never expect to be.

This exchange here reminds me of Hurricane Katrina and interaction a reporter had with Hardy Jackson: