Anyone else here confused at Danielle's attitude? (Warning: Bleeped profanity)

[Vort]

Poor Danielle. We all have sympathy for her and her daughter for their harrowing experiences and refugee status. But...what kind of idiot agrees to go on-camera, then insults and curses out the camera crew? Or is there some nuance here that I'm missing?

[Vort]

(Not to justify the camera crew, who IMO was acting in very poor taste by doing such a "live-with-the-victim" interview at all.)

[NeuroTypical]

Not idiot - human.  Put any random human through a few hard days of being cold, hungry, and afraid, and a sizable portion of them would react similarly.   It might be disdainful to think we're all a week of hunger away from becoming amoral animals, but it's largely true.  Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is a real eye opener. His "Last ultimate freedom" is worth understanding and thinking about.

Our military puts a lot of effort and training into the concept of "return with honor".  Especially for Special Forces and similar folks who may be alone and away from support for periods of time.  There's a reason for that.  The thin veneers of civility and community are thinner than we may feel comfortable admitting to ourselves.  

Edited August 30, 2017 by NeuroTypical

[Guest MormonGator]

@Vort, her family has gone through hell. Cut her some slack. 

[anatess2]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

 Or is there some nuance here that I'm missing?

My amateur attempt at body-language interpretation... Danielle did not want to be interviewed, she was trying to just walk away.  The interviewer had her by her arm.  So, she sat there waiting for the moment she gets on TV to just unload on the interviewer.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

The interviewer reminds me of the Hunger Games..."Now for our entertainment, tell us about your suffering."  

[anatess2]

1 hour ago, LiterateParakeet said:

The interviewer reminds me of the Hunger Games..."Now for our entertainment, tell us about your suffering."  

Nail.  On the head.

[Grunt]

We are the problem.  Society.  Us as individuals.  We feed off this.  We want to see the misery and destruction.  We push news crews to compete for ratings by having the grandest, yet most horrific, news stories and videos.  They stick the cameras in the faces of people in their worst moments, dead or alive, because the person who does it first or best makes the most money because we buy it. We crave it.

It's why I don't have cable and I moved to the middle of nowhere with neighbors who cherish community.

[anatess2]

15 hours ago, Grunt said:

We are the problem.  Society.  Us as individuals.  We feed off this.  We want to see the misery and destruction.  We push news crews to compete for ratings by having the grandest, yet most horrific, news stories and videos.  They stick the cameras in the faces of people in their worst moments, dead or alive, because the person who does it first or best makes the most money because we buy it. We crave it.

It's why I don't have cable and I moved to the middle of nowhere with neighbors who cherish community.

Dunno about that.

CNN is crap.  And that includes CNN-Philippines.  They're bleeding consumers.  Yet, their news coverage doesn't change.  I don't think it matters to them if there are people watching.

[Guest]

You're just coming into the refugee center.  You finally get some relief from not knowing whether you're going to die out there.  So you've calmed down enough to breathe. A reporter asks if they can interview you.  You say ok mostly out of courtesy.  

Then you have to just stand there with your kids waiting for your time on camera. During that time you begin to realize just how cold and hungry you are.  You see lines of people getting towels and blankets and food. But you endure because you agreed to the interview.

It finally starts.  You begin recounting your ordeal and the memories just overwhelm you with the feelings of dispair that you just got over.  

Now you're finally allowed to cry.

[NeuroTypical]

The media has always struggled with their purpose.  Journalists are supposed to report news.  What's news, what people need or want to hear, what's relevant, what's spin, what's agenda - well - in a world full of humans, it gets muddy fast.  Pressure for ratings and market share doesn't help.  Humans have bias - there are no exceptions.

Anyone else remember Don Henley's Dirty Laundry from 1982?  "Can we film the operation, Is the head dead yet?  You know the boys in the newsroom got a running bet! Get the widow on the set! We need dirty laundry"

Heck, anyone else remember all the newspaper drival and bias and spin and melodrama as they were writing the Federalist Papers?

Double-heck - I read the other day about the oldest pamphlet ever found by archaeologists.  It was somewhere in ancient Greece - people accusing the youth education authorities of corruption, saying they were spending the money on dancing women instead of smaller class sizes.  True story.  

[anatess2]

18 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Humans have bias - there are no exceptions.

 

There is nothing wrong with bias.

There is something wrong with journalists claiming not to be biased when they are biased.  Therein lies the problem.

[Bill (Papa) Lee]

On August 30, 2017 at 11:07 AM, Vort said:

Poor Danielle. We all have sympathy for her and her daughter for their harrowing experiences and refugee status. But...what kind of idiot agrees to go on-camera, then insults and curses out the camera crew? Or is there some nuance here that I'm missing?

Just fear and confusion, both very common human emotions that cause people to say and do things they defy description at times. I served in the Army between 1976-84, on medivac helicopters. We did both military and civilian support to meet the needs of others, on or during some of the worst points in their lives, up until that day. There were happy times when we would fly to small towns and pick up premature birth babies and fly them to better hospitals. But even then when the mother could not fly with her baby, let's just say those could be interesting moments. Otherwise our missions were carried out in some of the horrid, of circumstances, where people were either at their worst, or their best. Either way, one this day when the interview happened, I will give her a pass. I then went on to a 23 year career in Law Enforcement, for a total of 31 years seeing so many at their worst and best. Sadly, most of the time at their worst, making it very hard at times to see the good.  I am just glad they got out.  

[JohnsonJones]

Something that would have helped would be if the obviously comfortable media reporters had gotten food and other supplies for the lady while she waited.

There was a historic photo that I believe won a Pulitzer, but when you know the story behind it...it breaks belief.  This reporter went to Africa to report on a famine and drought.  While there they came upon a child that was showing the obvious signs of distress of starvation.  The child was on the ground, and a vulture was hopping towards the child as both waited to die. 

Instead of giving the child help, the reporter/photographer took a picture of the incident, showing the dire need.  I don't know what happened to the child, and yes, the picture is very heart wrenching of the situation.  On the otherhand, it is one of the photographer benefiting from the torture and agony of another...

So, to go back to the start, at times, perhaps instead of simply trying to do the inhumane thing, perhaps the better thing is to help the people out and THEN ask for an interview.  On the otherhand, they surely got the raw, unadulterated desperation that people have when in the situation which they may not get if they helped them first. 

I'm not a reporter, I do not have a degree or any training in journalism, but, even with the lack of the raw moment, I'd still think the latter would be better than the former.  I could be wrong though and the rules of journalism say something different.