Quote:
Originally Posted by Platapus
If people are choosing to be interviewed by the media, they should be allowed to be interviewed. The media can't force anyone to talk to them.
A quick no thank you or no comment is all that is needed and the press quickly moves to the next person. The press is not going to waste their time trying to convince one of many ordinary citizens to be interviewed. There are always people willing to be interviewed by the press.
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Don't know how it is around your whereabouts, but I have seen an awful lot of instances where reporters have hounded victims of various sorts of bad experiences rather than go for the "easy" interview. The willing interviewee is quite often not the sought after subject when there is an opportunity for a dramatic "get"; if a reporter sees one person just standing around adapting easily to a situation, that is not news; if a reporter sees another person in emotional distress, well, that makes for good video. It all falls into the old news cliche: "If it bleeds, it leads". When I used to work in downtown LA at the County Civic Center, I would sometimes see the news vans clustered outside the Courthouses, the reporters waiting for whatever sensational scandal or crime du jour case to let out and I'd see them rush to be first to get their interviews, The fastest beeline was made towards the individuals who were the most in distress; they would rush past all the other 'normal' participants and go straight for the drama. Dull and mundane does not make for "good" reporting or the advancement of a reporter's career...
As far as not going after someone who doesn't want to be interviewed, how often have you seen a reporter chase after someone who has explicitly declined to be interviewed or declined comment while being barraged by repeated questions? There have been times when I have seen people being badgered by insensitive reporters and I have wished there where some sort of restriction on their behavior, sort of "If the person says 'No', you must back off and move on"...
As long as I'm on the subject of reporters, there is another pet peeve: reporters who show up at a disaster scene and immediately seem to make it seem they are part of the emergency effort; I'll never forget one scene where there was a massive wildfire and some of the firefighters were coming off the line following being relived by new firefighters; as they came down into the base camp, a reporter, all fresh in his California casual outfit, ran up to the firefighter who was the senior leader of the team, and cheerfully asked "How is our effort to stop the fire going? How are we doing?" The tired and dirty senior firefighter didn't miss the 'our' and 'we' and, with a classic 'looks that kill' glance, gestured to the other tired firefighters and said "
We are doing
our best and
we will be back on line after
we rest and eat. I hope
you have a nice day." And. with that, he walked away towards his team...
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