When journalists are kidnapped, injured or killed in the line of duty, their peers are challenged in covering the news. Now it’s personal. Sometimes they are telling the story of a beloved colleague, other times a stranger with whom they share a badge of shared identity.
The challenges stack up as surely as the criticism that accompanies them. Newsroom leaders need to be prepared to help navigate:
• The Leadership Imperative: How leaders handle themselves at the worst of times will define them and their organization for years to come. Did top management respond with generosity, compassion, creativity and courage? The people throughout the organization are watching how the leadership treats the victims’ families -- both because they hurt for them and because what happens in such circumstances reflects what the organization stands for.
• The Personal Challenge: When tragedy befalls a colleague, emotions are high: frustration, fear, grief. Newsroom leaders can gently and firmly help their staff balance their personal loyalties and professional obligations as they handle the story about one of their own. This is a time to prove that while human beings are not built to be “objective,” the editorial process, with its checks and balances, is.
• The Morale Morass: Members of the news organization are hurting, want to help, and hunger for information. They need to be fed, however small the morsels of information. And they better not find out important news about their colleague from any other news outlet. This is a story they want and need to own – personally and professionally.
• The Proportionality Criticism: News leaders may be asked: “Why do you provide so much more coverage when your own staff is hurt than when brave soldiers are killed and injured every day?” Leaders need to provide rational answers about the news decisions they make, and the coverage they have provided throughout the war.Leaders need to provide rational answers about the news decisions they make, and the coverage they have provided throughout the war. At the same time, they can remind everyone on their team that coverage isn’t an either/or situation – even as they report stories about journalists-as-targets, they can continue to report on soldiers and citizens harmed by war. In fact, it is especially important not to let the news of a colleague edge out news of others. Internally, we also need to be careful not to overemphasize coverage of better-known colleagues at the expense of partners toiling behind the scenes.
• The “No-Win" Curse: Report too little, and media organizations may be accused of holding back information. Report too much and expect to be accused of self-indulgence. The true win is in your journalistic conscience. Approach this story with the very same guiding principles of journalism that Poynter’s Bob Steele teaches for all stories: seek truth and tell it as fully as possible, act independently, and minimize harm.
• The Business Balance: When the journalist is well known, there is a celebrity factor that raises the intensity of the coverage. Powerful, emotional stories about well-known people attract readers and viewers. Newsrooms struggle with the concern that they are exploiting the story if the coverage is extensive, or shortchanging the victim if the reporting is too restrained.
• The Political Invective: In these divisive times, partisans grab even stories like this and attempt to frame them in political terms. A quick scan of blog comments shows that the Woodruff/Vogt story is already a flashpoint for political flamethrowers of all stripes. As a leader, be prepared for comments that impugn the integrity of your news organization and even celebrate the demise of journalists. Respond when necessary, resist debating the intractable, and remember that the First Amendment at the core of your journalism also protects those who view telling the truth, acting independently, and minimizing harm through an entirely personal lens, and don’t wish to refocus it.
Finally, news leaders need to think about the future even as they deal with the crisis of today. What will the news staff need as the story develops? Who will need counseling, rest, a challenge, a responsibility? Think ahead twelve months. Though it is impossible to find good in this situation right now, when you look back on it in a year, what will you say it did to – and for – your organization? What did your response say about you as a leader?
