Good Guys Don't Always Wear White

By Jessie Balmert
jb196605@ohio.edu

In journalism, as in life, we all want a simple answer. We want people to fit into their prescribed boxes and stay there. We expect persons charged with rape to be bad, students who die unexpectedly to be good, and journalists who cover these events to be exploitive and cruel. How rarely does reality live up to these expectation?

For every story, there is just as much back story. For this reason, I enjoyed this article about how victims of horrible situations were treated by reporters. In some instances, journalists acted exactly as they are stereotyped. A photographer sneaked into the funeral of a 16-year-old woman who died in a plane crash to take photos of her grieving parents. In other cases, journalists exuded the humanity that they should ... being humans after all. An Oklahoma couple who lost their home in a tornado called the reporters "very nice" and "sympathetic."

In my own career, I've written about homicides, suicides and accidental deaths. I do not enjoy writing these stories. I would prefer that everyone lives to a ripe old age and dies peacefully in his or her bed. But that is not the reality of our world. So when I am asked to cover an accident, I remember that this person was not a sinner or a saint, but a son, a sister, a friend and a colleague. As fellow men and women, they are owed at least that much.