Is it possible to be fair and balanced when reporting on such atrocities such as the sights of Buchenwald, or, more recently, the Iraqi orphanage where American and Iraqi soldiers found starving children, tied to cribs or sleeping on cement?
I do not believe it is possible, nor do I believe it is necessary. Horrific things happened—it isn’t irresponsible or unfair to report those horrific things exactly as they were nor is it unfair to report any responses to them.
Here are the opening sentences of both stories: The first is from Edward R. Murrow’s radio broadcast of the liberation of Buchenwald in 1945.
There surged around me an evil-smelling stink, men and boys reached out to touch me. They were in rags and the remnants of uniforms. Death already had marked many of them, but they were smiling with their eyes. I looked out over the mass of men to the green fields beyond, where well-fed Germans were ploughing….
Murrow tells the story, exactly as he sees it and he apologizes for nothing. He feels the public should know what happened in Buchenwald and the determination and disgust in his voice are very apparent. It is at times hard to listen to, it is perhaps more real, seems less fictitious, than reading a memoir and therefore does not allow the listener to become detached in any way.
The second account is a CBS News story from 2007 telling of when American and Iraqi soldiers found the suffering orphans.
It was a scene that shocked battle-hardened soldiers, captured in photographs obtained exclusively by CBS News.
On a daytime patrol in central Baghdad just over than a week ago, a U.S. military advisory team and Iraqi soldiers happened to look over a wall and found something horrific.
Horrific is not necessarily a fair and balanced word in the world of journalism, unless it is a direct quote, but I do not believe another word should have taken its place.
The two passages are very similar even though one is being reported on more than 60 years after the other. The language is very simple, plain, and precise. Although some of what is reported is opinion based, such as Murrow saying, “evil-smelling stink” or the CBS News using the word “horrific” but in such circumstances I think it is ok to voice opinions in order to better communicate the story to the reader or listener.
Elie Wiesel was quite like a reporter, despite the fact he was looking back on the events that had happened, he gave the accounts of what occurred, with little to no commentary. He simply told his story, as biased as he should have been he did not dwell on the evilness of the people or the place he was confined by, nor did he tell his story in a way that made him seem better or more deserving of survival than any other prisoner.
Even though his story is told in first person, it is a story just like the two stories cited above. Each reporter has his or her own perspective and therefore inserts themselves into their stories whether they want to or not.
Murrow ends his broadcast with these words:
I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it, I have no words.
If I have offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I’m not in the least sorry….
I believe these words can also describe Elie Wiesel’s work. He makes no apologies for what happened to him nor does he apologize for needing to tell his story.
What makes all three of these stories compelling, heart wrenching and dramatic is their sincerity and no one should make apologies for that.
One Comment
Yoooooooooo, Katie. Great post.
I would agree with your assessment that there is nothing wrong with using subjective phrases like “horrific” (as you point out from the CBS story) in reporting the news in some instances. Yes, I suppose journalism should aim to be as objective as possible about things, but there are certain events/stories that demand special treatment.
There comes a certain point when using objectivity to describe something takes on an inhuman dimension. To not feel some sort of emotion about something like the liberation of a concentration camp, the devastating conditions that people in Iraq are facing, etc. etc. seems… I don’t know… wrong. Just reporting the facts in a clinical fashion doesn’t suit the occasion in cases like these. If opinions and emotions are used to better communicate the story, like you said, then I think there are all the reasons in the world to apply them.
However, I think there’s a fine line between genuine emotion/feeling to better communicate a story and then something that approaches sensationalism. It’s hard for me to explain exactly how I would differentiate between the two, and I guess that’s maybe why I shouldn’t become a journalist… among other reasons…
End of comment. (Thank goodness?)
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