As a field reporter working in Haiti, witnessing the aftermath of the devastating earthquake first hand, there are many reaching out in need for assistance. Having medical skills would allow me to help those in need. Images of disaster have been going through my mind. There are so many people still in need for medical attention and care. People have been reaching out to the reporters for assistance. While witnessing the first hand accounts of these people suffering, I cannot help but provide assistance to those in need. The people of Haiti are in agonizing pain, and on top of that, they have nothing. When I see someone in need, I feel as if it is my duty, not as a journalist but as a human being, to help a fellow human being. We are people before our professions.
Although we are giving a voice to the voiceless, it is our responsibility to be humane to our fellow man. My job as a journalist is not to make the story about me. My intervention in helping another bears no burden on what I am reporting. What do I do if a woman comes up to me, bloody, face littered with cuts, lacking the ability to walk, begging for me to do something, anything? In a way, wouldn't journalists reaching out and helping another show the audience a different side of the media? It gives journalism a more positive connotation that can be associated with heroism. Looking at these images, it is troubling to even realize that there are those who would not put down their note pad and microphone to lend a hand. We are all these people have to rely on. Not providing out assistance would be an injustice to mankind itself.
AP's senior managing editor, John Daniszewski said, "Of course journalists are human and normally in such situations will set aside their cameras and notebooks to offer help, giving away whatever food or water they have on them. But that misses the larger point that by doing their jobs they have a more effective way to assist people in need."
Obviously, informing the public if these atrocities is an effective way to assist people in need, because the audience can become involved in different ways of sending assistance. However, since journalists are already in that situation in which help is being begged from them, it would seem logical that they would assist before they worry about their own story. This gives the viewing audience a better understanding of what is going on in Haiti and the gravity of the situation, where these people are in need of immediate assistance.
You've seen children and their mothers dying, people looting from each other, beating others to death for the simplest things. You've seen those without food, water, even shelter, begging for the smallest necessities. Ask yourself this: Would you finish your story, head back on an airplane and leave, guilt free? Or would you put down the camera and lend a hand?
Images with permission from Creative Commons
