In Haiti, can doctors be reporters too?
Or more importantly, should they?
Since arriving to quake-devastated Haiti, network medical reporters have been shifting back and forth between doctor and reporter. Those dual roles have sparked criticism around the Web, notably from experts on journalism ethics who argue doctor/reporters put themselves in an ethical quanadry by trying to save lives one minute and tell the story the next.
"I think it's very hard for an individual who is professionally and emotionally engaged in saving lives to be able to simultaneously step back from the medical work and practice independent journalistic truth-telling," Bob Steele, journalism values scholar at the Poynter Institute, told the LA Times in this great piece about that ethical dilemma.
After Dr. Sanjay Gupta swooped in to perform brain surgery on a 12-year-old Haitian girl, Steele questioned CNN's motives in airing the story. “Frankly, it isn’t much of a story,” Steele told the LA Times. “You can’t help but look at this and worry there is a marketing element in it.” If he's going to be a doctor, do so, but then he needs to stop being a reporter, Steele argued.
Minnesota journalism professor Gary Schwitzer hears from other ethicists who maintain that doctor/reporters risk being seen as self-promoters who exploit suffering one moment then a second later try to fix it.
Just as many are praising CNN's earthquake coverage, others are criticizing that correspondents are mixing newsmaking with newsgathering. The snarksters over at Gawker said team Anderson Cooper and Gupta "played a team of roving superhero reporters, covering the news but only after saving everyone's lives. (Imagine if somebody could be Clark Kent and Superman at the same time.)"
Funny and true.
But Gupta and others have defended their position, saying they are doctors first and that they can walk a delicate balance between their moral responsibility to heal the sick and their journalistic duty to tell the story. In a disaster with such tremendous medical needs, what's a doctor to do?
What do you think?
AP photo: Gupta operates on a 12-year-old Haitian girl
Comments
From my point of view the doctoring is about the only thing substantial to come out of network news coverage of Haiti. As I look at these pieces on the evening news I keep thinking, couldn't the space in the airplanes been used more efficiently than sending multiple network reporters with their myriad of support crew and broadcast gear? Seeing the images could take one shared film crew taking pictures while the suits in the US come up with stories to over-dub. The people of Haiti need food and water and rescue workers and medical personel. At least Gupta can spend a good chunk of his time helping out.
Posted by: a parent | January 19, 2010 1:21 PM
In highschool journalism, we are told not to be part of the story. This rule under such circumstances is warranted in breaking.
Dr Gupta is a doctor first, and a fine one at that. Would everyone rather the watching of children dying for lack of a skilled surgeon or just some able bodied person to rescue them?
If one is not willing to get in and help, one is stealing oxygen from they that need.
Posted by: Meekrat | January 19, 2010 2:03 PM
I'm glad to read something about this. I have seen Dr Gupta and another doctor/reporter on ABC News and it made me scratch my head too. If they are there as doctors to help those in need, great! Leave the cameras behind. But if they are reporters, report on the medical crisis and don't become part of the story.
It seems like a blatant attempt to gain viewers by having reporters get their hands dirty in the medical piece. If the motivation of these doctors and networks was to truly help the people of Haiti, they would allow Dr Gupta and others to go there and use their skills without going on the air with it. Anything more than that seems like a photo opportunity.
Posted by: Jeff | January 19, 2010 3:45 PM