Media Callousness

There are some images that are inherently private. Everyone knows that, right? Apparently the media do not. Lately there have been so many examples on Australian tv that I am starting to think we need a movement. The public need to rise up and shout No, we do not need to know everything! Do not invade our privacy in the name of ‘news’.

The pictures I’ve seen have mostly been of grief.
China: relatives on their knees having just been informed that their family members, though alive, were trapped in buildings too dangerous to enter, so the search was being called off. The picture cut from the women before they were told, already showing signs of distaste at being filmed, to the same women after the news, in total shock and attempting to hide their grief from the camera.
Australia: victim of a horrific boat accident grieving the loss of his friends while being carried off to an ambulance.
These people did not ask to be on tv. It was obvious (by their hands covering their faces) that they did not want to be on tv at a moment like that. Exactly how does it aid the public’s understanding of disaster scenes to witness such invasions of privacy?

The latest episode was not as graphic, there were no pictures, but it was equally heartless and unnecessary. This morning on Sunrise, a current affairs breakfast show, there was a discussion about reports that Angelina Jolie has had her twins. So-and-so entertainment news in the US is reporting she has, this-n-that other entertainment news reporting she hasn’t, you get the picture. Toward the end of the segment the presenter mentions Jolie’s due date was announced as August, then laughingly says ‘I guess we’ll have to wait for the million dollar photos to be sure’.

August. That’s right, they were having a light-hearted discussion about whether a Mother had just given birth to twins 2 months prematurely. Without even a mention that this may be a complete disaster for the twins and their family. No consideration that if those ‘reports’, that apparently provided for such an entertaining debate, were true then there is no guarantee the twins will live, let alone live healthy non-hospitalised lives.

I complained. By email and by phone. I hope more people disgusted by such callousness will complain. Maybe then the media will get the idea that the public doesn’t have a right, or a desire, to know everything.