For all media outlets — television, radio, newspaper, online — covering a tragedy can be difficult, not only because the subject matter can be disturbing but painful.
Wars, for instance, can be outright scary; the Oklahoma City bombing and the attack on the Twin Towers had a nation on the edge of its seat; and weather-related destruction saddens everyone.
Putting out that kind of information, though, is necessary for a variety of reasons. Facts about how our officials respond and how we react matter. Truth, also, matters, and that most of all.
In this day and age, with the variety of social media outlets posing as news, facts tend to get in the way of sensationalism; it becomes more important to shock than to inform.
That is more evident when the tragedy strikes close to home.
Many people have come into contact with the rumor mill, when something bad happens and people begin gossiping about the “facts” of the matter, distorting it to a point that they become unbelievable. Part of that is describing either a perceived motive or how a tragedy happened.
What credible news outlets do is offer truth. It’s done with words, video and even pictures, and in many cases, particularly when a tragedy happens right next door, it becomes extremely uncomfortable to the point that it’s considered bad taste to report.
Credible news outlets, such as Polk County Publishing, go to great lengths to print the truth without the need to sensationalize the event. Nothing gets in the paper without a thorough review for accuracy as well as taste. These items, particularly with tragic events, run to not only set the record straight, but to use that information to spur discussion on public safety, to alert readers to the impact this could have on the community, and because human interest being what it is, these events resonate within a community.
We take care to inform, not sensationalize, and if something does run incorrectly, it is corrected as soon as possible. We follow our code of ethics to not to be too graphic in our display or to increase anyone’s suffering.
We also offer our sympathies, because tragedies affect us as well; we look forward to a time when we have no such stories to report.
Tony Farkas is editor of the Trinity County News-Standard and the San Jacinto News-Times. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing.com.
