Monday, December 24, 2007

There’s Someone at the Door

Paul Giacobbe

There are few issues as troubling as those which arise when a reporter, seeking an interview, appears unannounced at the home of a news subject.  In a previous blog posting there was a discussion about the ethical and sensitivity problems that are associated with visits to the homes of crime or accident victims, or their families.

Recently, a viewer complained that an NBC10 reporter, seeking an interview, went to the home of fired state EMA director Robert Warren on the night Mr. Warren was terminated from his job as a result of the problems following the midday snowstorm and resulting traffic gridlock.

“I feel the reporter going to his home was outrageous,” the viewer wrote. “Mr. Warren was then a private citizen who must have been very embarrassed by his very public firing.  This must have been a difficult, unfortunate day for him and his family and I feel the journalist was way out of line intruding on them at their home.“

Television is a visual medium.  To reporters, that’s both an advantage and a burden. Telling a news consumer what an interviewee said is OK, but letting them see and hear for themselves is at the heart of what television news does.  A television reporter can’t do that with a phone call; he has to be there, cameraman and microphone in tow.

I’m generally uncomfortable with video that shows a reporter walking unannounced to the porch of a news subject’s home, camera rolling, and asking the unsuspecting person who opens the door for an interview.  In many cases, especially when the news subject or a family member refuses the interview, the video serves no other purpose than to show that the reporter was there.  It is, essentially, marketing; it conveys no useful information.

But, as lawyers sometimes say, “Bad cases make bad law.”  For those who favor the position that it is wrong for a reporter to show up unannounced at the home of a news subject, as did the NBC10 reporter who sought to interview the fired EMT director, the Warren example is a “bad case.”

Warren was a public employee, and relatively highly paid.  He had consented to an extensive radio interview the day he was fired.  He was fired under circumstances that many people, including Mr. Warren himself, may have felt were unfair.  It was not unreasonable that a prudent reporter (or news director) would want not only to ask Mr. Warren some questions, but provide Mr. Warren the opportunity to tell his story.  A newspaper reporter can do that with a phone call; a television reporter needs the pictures.

Additionally, although it happened after the viewer wrote in defense of Mr. Warren’s privacy, Warren gave a lengthy interview to a newspaper reporter.  Had the NBC10 reporter not gone to Mr. Warren’s home, that reporter would have wondered whether he missed the opportunity for that interview.

Cameras-rolling “ambush interviews,” which sometimes include jamming a microphone under the face of an unsuspecting news subject who opens up the door, are not an appropriate newsgathering technique.  But that wasn’t the case here, and Mr. Warren’s voluntary radio and (subsequent) newspaper statements, suggest that appearing at his home and requesting an interview was simply good reporting.

NBC10 provides the space for this blog, but the opinions are mine alone – Paul Giacobbe.