On May 31, a flight instructor named Craig MacCallum and his 19-year-old student lost control of a single-engine plane shortly after taking off from a small airport in Linden, New Jersey. MacCallum put out a mayday call just before the plane plummeted from the sky. The student survived, but MacCallum didn’t make it. And I may have watched him die.
No, I wasn’t on the abandoned industrial lot in New Jersey where the plane crashed. I wasn’t even in the vicinity. But the News 4 New York chopper was, and the network interrupted my soap opera to deliver the breaking news. One minute I was watching Brady and Kristen’s relationship disintegrate on Days of Our Lives (guilty pleasure), the next I was hovering above the wrecked carcass of an aircraft.
“We were flying about five miles northwest of the airport when we heard the emergency call go out — an aircraft down,” said News 4 photojournalist Dennis Protsko. It only took a couple of minutes for Protsko and the pilot to get there. When the chopper started filming, rescue crews hadn’t even arrived.
The camera began to zoom in, and then stopped. “Looks to be that there’s two people on board. We don’t want to get too tight. The picture looks a little bit graphic. It looked like one person was unconscious at the scene and possibly severely injured. Another person was conscious and moving around. That person appears to be still trapped in the aircraft,” Protsko said.
Yes, one of the men was alive. I could see him now too. A head and torso emerged from the cockpit. “Get that guy out,” I thought.
And still the firemen hadn’t arrived. With my bird’s eye view, I could see they were hustling across the large lot on foot. Was MacCallum already gone?
My logical half understands that Protsko probably has no medical training and that helicopters can’t simply land when and where they please (then again, isn’t that exactly what they’re designed to do?). But the coverage made me queasy nonetheless. More than queasy, actually. I was horrified. What about the men’s families? Were they watching? Were they wondering if this was their son, their husband? Did they recognize the plane?
A plane crash is news, of course, but I’ll never understand what made this tiny one worthy of live coverage. This wasn’t journalism, it was rubbernecking. And, sure, we’ll watch because we can’t help ourselves. But that doesn’t make it ethical or decent or right. According to the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics, journalists should show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage, be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief, show good taste, and avoid pandering to lurid curiosity. On these counts, News 4 New York failed.
I shudder to think of the tragedies that will be live broadcast when local news stations get their hands on a fleet of shiny new drones, which are cheaper, faster, and easier to deploy than helicopters. I’m hoping for better judgement, but expecting more of the same.
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Screen shot from a video taken by ABC7
They interrupted your regular viewing with this? What?
William, you understand that I wasn’t angry about the interruption. I was angry about the coverage. You get that, right?
Indeed, and I agree with you, but the fact that they felt they needed to interrupt regular broadcasting as if this was some sort of national emergency speaks volumes doesn’t it? I can’t imagine that happening in the UK.
Yes, agreed! And I probably could have forgiven them for showing injured people in real time if it had been some sort of emergency — like the Boston bombing or 9/11. Sure, let me know on your Web site or Twitter that a single-engine plane crashed. But don’t send a chopper to hover above it for 15 minutes.
It seems crazy to me that their idea of not crossing the line was keeping the camera zoomed out far enough so that I couldn’t see the extent of the victims’ injuries. In my mind, they crossed the line when they decided to live broadcast the footage.
What I can never quite get past is the idea of somebody photographing instead of scrambling around trying to help. You said it, Cassie, it’s rubbernecking.
“we’ll watch because we can’t help ourselves”
Sorry, but that is an excuse. Turn off the tv set. Refuse to watch it. What good is it actually doing for you? Is this “staying informed”? Does “we can’t help ourselves” carry any weight in other areas…e.g. Criminal court, shop lifting? I have contempt for that kind of journalism, and a bit of that contempt is also aimed, perhaps unfairly, at people who rubber neck at tragedies, who glue themselves to the tv set to watch others’ lives unravel for purely voyeuristic purposes, who say “we can’t help ourselves”. Is that why soap operas and reality tv are popular? Because they’re akin to rubber necking? What is even more pitiful and contemptible are the people who are so absorbed in rubber necking that they slow down in traffic, block the highway unawares, and create a very real danger to others. I always imagine that if they were on foot they’d walk slack-jawed into the path of a truck.
I also don’t have very charitable feelings towards people who claim to deplore this sort of stuff, but participate in it. No doubt I’m being overly harsh and judgmental though. I just don’t have any common ground with this type of behavior so people like that seem alien to me. I don’t engage in rubber necking and I have no urge to watch these things on tv. I didn’t even see the twin towers footage till the 10th anniversary.
Apologies if I’ve offended, but if you watch this stuff, you and people like you are THE reason why this crap is shown on tv. It is a bit hypocritical to whinge about it when you participate in it. Think tv evangelists caught in extramarital affairs, gay and hetero.
Gah. I’m being a dick. I guess I just can’t help myself.
Hi Cassie, I feel the same distaste towards this type of news journalism. Local news creates heightened anxiety because it focuses on these rare cases of personal tragedy as though they are national emergencies. I avoid watching news programs because of it. I’m now trying to work out how best to keep myself informed without a side serving of sensationalism. Any thoughts on good alternatives?