Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Don't Hate the Player.

I've been so very lucky. In the whole cycle of Octomom media coverage I haven't been assigned to the story not even once. Last night when two of Nadya Suleman's children were brought home from the hospital, I was set up on the street in front of their home for live shots.

I don't know what to say.

I don't doubt that our presence contributed to the circus atmosphere, but the choice between doing our job by covering the story or not covering it isn't much of a choice at all.

There's no question in my mind that Nadya Suleman, her Octuplets and every angle of all the morality questions involved should be covered.

I don't want to cover it and I'm not particularly interested in standing in a mob like last night's again (yay, six more kids to go), but this story should be covered

It's ugly and doesn't inherently speak to anyone's intelligence, but you better believe people are watching.

It's so large that I can't even begin to defend the idea of less coverage.

It's another one of those days where I want to make a point, but I've only got a short time before I have to leave for work.

If the story is bothering you, then tell me, what would you have us do?

As much as you might question the judgement of the people in news who make the decision to go after a story like this, we can't ignore it. All we can do is cover the story as appropriately as possible.

I can't control how other people behave. I can only control how I behave. That's why you didn't see me on TV hanging from an SUV last night.

You know, to put it into perspective, I got about 19 comments from people who felt strongly about the coverage. That's more comments on any one story than I've gotten in quite a while.

Maybe that tells you something.


SidDawgone said...

B., I think your self-picture captures it appropriately here. Keep on doing what you're doing for all the reasons you know to be right, we'll keep following you along because we trust you!

Ron said...

It would be fun to see you hanging from a SUV (though not in this context!)