With earthquake devastated Haiti as the backdrop, I was surprised to come across this strange question posed by a journalist: Are reporters with backgrounds in medicine being show-offs when they simultaneously report on a disaster and administer care?
The particular reporter whose actions provoked this journalistic soul searching is Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the chief medical correspondent for CNN. Gupta administered medical care to the sick and the injured in Haiti while also reporting the news of their conditions.
Interchangeably dressed in a grey T-shirt or a black button-down, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta has spent the past seven days and seven nights amid Haiti's ruins, at times abandoning the microphone and bright lights for gauze and a scalpel. …
Since he arrived in Haiti last Wednesday, Dr. Gupta has treated a 15-day-old Haitian girl whose mother perished in the earthquake, single-handedly staffed a field hospital after a Belgian medical team left the site over security concerns and, most recently, performed brain surgery on a 12-year-old Haitian girl aboard the USS Carl Vinson, which is anchored off the coast of Port-au-Prince….
Between surgeries, impromptu consults, administering antibiotics and changing IV drips, Dr. Gupta — who was unavailable for an interview — has been filing regular field reports and interviewed U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the weekend.
In an article in the Washington Post, correspondent Ian Shapira picks up on the question originally asked by another WaPo journalist, Paul Farhi and elaborates on his own feelings about Gupta's dual role as a reporter and medic.
Today, The Washington Post's Paul Farhi poses a provocative question on journalism ethics: Are reporters with backgrounds in medicine being show-offs when they simultaneously report on a disaster and administer care?
This debate has emerged in the aftermath of Haiti's quake; journalism's longstanding traditions dictate that we are supposed to be primarily observers, and that we should intervene in events only when necessary. Admittedly, reporters tend to take themselves a little too seriously — with a dose of self-righteousness — believing that we should not interfere in a story because we would interrupt the narrative's natural rhythms. But in the case of Haiti, or in any other crisis, reporters often discard those mandates.
I confess that when I saw the CNN reporter Sanjay Gupta caring for a baby in Haiti, dealing with the child's head wound, I cringed. I thought he had an ulterior motive, that he was trying to boost CNN's flagging ratings by sending a message to audiences back home: CNN tells great stories, but CNN also saves lives! One can't help but feel that major media organizations possess a kind of lust for these disasters, with their built-in storylines, and that the onslaught of reporters is taking up so much precious space and resources, as The New Republic's Noam Scheiber recently argued..
But, the more I thought about the extreme circumstances of Haiti's situation — the seeming lack of government and scant supply of medical workers — the more my cynicism receded and the more I thought Gupta and others like him have been doing the right thing. Haiti needs help. Reporters can tell stories and show the images to help boost sympathy and donor dollars; and, in the cases of those who are qualified, administer medical aid.
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