[BC] We do it because we can, not because it is right

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9-1-1-CALLS AND PRIVACY - REVISITED
By 
<http://www.wsmv.com/danmillersnotebook/9571491/detail.html?taf=nash>Dan Miller
WSMV.COM

A TV station in Cleveland recently ran audio of a horrifying 9-1-1 
call by a mother, who found her 6-year old daughter had drowned. 
Obviously, many people heard the woman's tortured call on the 
station's newscasts.
It's an audio tape I never want to hear.... and I can't imagine 
anybody would. There's more to the story.
Because it aired that emergency call, WOIO-TV may lose it's lucrative 
contract to broadcast Cleveland Browns preseason games. It happens 
that the mother, whose frantic call on July 9th was played on the 
station's newscasts, is the sister of Randy Lerner, the owner of the 
Cleveland Browns. Lerner was so upset at the exploitation of his 
family that he no longer wants anything to do with the station, and 
no longer wants his team's preseason games broadcast on WOIO-TV.
According to Associated Press, Lerner said, "Our organization is 
disgusted and shocked and therefore having trouble, just like any 
disgusted and shocked person would have, in continuing in a 
collaborative relationship." None of this surprises me.... in fact, I 
completely understand Lerner's outrage.
For me, the exploitation of 9-1-1 calls by broadcasters has long been 
an uncomfortable and, frankly, embarrassing reality. On two 
occasions, I have written essays here about this.
I'll link you to them a few lines down. Though many of my fellow 
journalists and news executives strongly disagree with me, I don't 
believe we should even be allowed routine access to 9-1-1 calls.
I consider it a gross, uncomfortable intrusion into the agony and 
deep personal trauma -- or even the simple excitability -- 
experienced by people placing emergency calls to 9-1-1. We all like 
to say we'd show restraint and sensitivity.
But too many times, we don't.
Whenever there's a dramatic emergency, or crime, or disaster, the 
first question asked by news producers will be, "are the 9-1-1 tapes 
available yet?"
And if they are.... somebody, somewhere, will use them. Sure, those 
tapes are technically "public records".... but so are autopsy photos, 
and gruesome crime and accident scenes, and we don't show those... 
even when we have permission from judges.
And personally, I think hearing the actual voice of someone in utter 
distress is even more intrusive and disturbing.

Here's a point I made in one of my earlier essays.

I truly fear that someday someone -- maybe you -- will hesitate, or 
decide against calling 9-1-1, simply because you know that your 
voice, filled with terror or emotion, will likely be heard over and 
over again on television newscasts.

After that moment of hesitation.... it might be too late.
That would be a tragedy.


<http://danmiller.typepad.com/dan_millers_notebook/2006/07/a_matter_of_pri.html>A 
MATTER OF PRIVACY


<http://danmiller.typepad.com/dan_millers_notebook/2006/07/the_exploitatio.html>THE 
EXPLOITATION OF 9-1-1 CALLS