John Edwards, Haiti, Saddam’s Statue and Sean Penn

Posted on January 27, 2010 | 6 Comments

It has been two weeks since the earthquake in Haiti, long enough to see that there are some stories that television does very well, some stories where print has no peer.  First, though, anyone involved in broadcasting from Haiti during the days immediately following the earthquake has to be praised for getting a signal out of there, much less worrying about content.  One night, Diane Sawyer appeared to be using a microphone on air like the one I have on my I-phone.  You couldn’t hear her very well, but you could hear her. Having worked for a broadcast organization that occasionally had trouble getting a signal out of the building where we worked, I have to marvel at what the technical folks were able to do.

The bottom line though is that the story was too big – physically – for television.  If you think of some of the major stories of the past decade, central images come to mind.  The World Trade Center towers in flames, a USAirways jet floating in the Hudson, President Obama taking the oath of office, the toppling statue of Saddam, those polar bears floating on the melting ice. Stories with a center, and a focus.  In Haiti, there appeared to be no center, no single focus, no one place for TV to look that summed up the magnitude of the story.  Anderson Cooper probably said it best: “The thing that’s difficult about this is that the camera lens is too small to capture what is really happening here.”

Ah, but that’s where reporting is supposed to come in. Faced with the challenge, TV fell back on familiar story lines, and fed us a steady diet of cheesy emotionalism.  The countdown to the 72-hour point where people could not survive, followed by the “miracle” stories of survivors being pulled from the rubble. The interview with the distraught father who had rejoiced when he was told his daughter was alive, only to find out later that she was still missing, most likely lost.  (Yes, I know people probably wanted to go on TV to try to intensify the search to find missing relatives.  But just because devastated people want to be on TV doesn’t mean you should put them on TV.) The focus on the Haiti orphans being sped to waiting families in the US and tearful airport welcomes. NBC finally ran a story last night pointing out that UNICEF was trying to “temper the emotional response” to orphan stories, citing the difficulty in ascertaining if all those kids really are orphans with no extended family to care for them.  The story also quoted one aid worker as saying that the best thing would be to keep the kids in Haiti and look after them there because they are, after all, Haiti’s future.  But tonight NBC couldn’t resist another tug-at-your-heartstrings story about two young Haitian girls, best friends in an orphanage, who are now sisters because the same American family adopted them. So there, UNICEF.

It was the print media that really told us what was going on.  The New York Times, especially, delivered stories with the well chosen phrase, the carefully selected picture. A thoughtful story about the loss of Haiti’s cultural treasures, and the impact it is having on the country. A description of the importance of funerals as rituals in Haitian society. A longer feature of the impact of the quake on the residents of one street, rich and poor.  A photograph of an elderly man, helping his son to walk home through the rubble.  The son had just had his lower leg amputated.  The sorrow, determination and bewilderment on both faces speak volumes about what this country has endured. But perhaps one headline in the Times also says a great deal about why their coverage is so good:  “Haiti’s Woes are Top Test for Aid Effort.”  It is dated March 30, 2009.  The Times has been there all along and Haiti’s problems are not all news to them.

But speaking of Haiti, and the broadcast media, takes me to John Edwards, who turned up there last week shortly after saying, oh, by the way, yes indeed, little Frances Quinn is his daughter and he is going to do right by her.  (If you are wondering what Edwards was doing in Haiti, he was delivering aid with Sean Penn, which clarifies everything.) Among the many things that television does very well is this: preserves the moment, keeps people on record, reminds us of what otherwise might fade in our memories.  If you think the US dodged a serious bullet when Sarah Palin was not elected Vice President, take a look the 20/20 interview Edwards gave in August, ’08.  He is earnestly, boyishly, convincingly telling Bob Woodruff that there is no way that child could be his.  The interview with Edwards, a much closer near-miss at the Vice Presidency than Palin, makes you think that of the two, she might not have been so bad after all.