Death Alive: The Challenges of Live Reporting On Disasters and Tragedies

Abstract

Given that recordings of wars, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and other tragic and catastrophic events have become commonplace and ubiquitous in the modern mediated world, this paper questions the importance and role of the media as a mediator in distributing these recordings to the public. The role of the media in providing credible information in situations of crisis is very important, but also difficult, especially when it comes to live reporting, when there is no possibility to control the situation and when no one can know whether we will see death or hear it live. The paper uses a case study of two regional news televisions (N1 and Al Jazeera Balkans) reporting on the earthquake inPetrinja (Croatia), to show the weight of dilemmas and challenges that a journalist faces when he experiences, sees, and records a tragic event, and must report about it immediately - ethically, professionally and objectively. The aim of the paper is therefore to point out the reality of the journalistic profession in which sometimes, not with the intention of relativizing journalistic objectivity, there may still be a gap between ideals and practice.