Lee Coppola, long-time dean of the St. Bonaventure journalism/communication department and media veteran, said the local television station’s decision to carry live coverage of the Monday night standoff was the right one.
Coppola said on the radio this morning that the newsworthiness of the event is what rightfully led 2, 4 and 7 to cover the man-with-a-gun saga live.
It’s the same reason we ran the photo of a man with a gun to his head last winter.
As journalists, we do have to think about the impact our reporting and photos have on our audiences, but newsworthiness is big. Telling the story is what journalists have done for years and years. Telling the positive and negative stories, might I add. Are you listening, Wilson!
The pictures, and even the video, help journalists tell the story more easily. We can’t turn away when faced with visuals that help tell that story. Sometimes we can, think people leaping from the World Trade Center buildings. I could live without that photo in my newspaper.
I know the television stations are probably taking some heat for the decision to carry the whole ordeal — I did for our front-page photo in January — but it comes with the territory in cases like this. The right decision was made and people saw right before them, the news of the night. That’s the immediacy of TV. The moral police came out Tuesday morning, 
but I’m sure they were tuned in Monday.
How many of those same people take a different road or turn around when they see an accident down the street? Nope, they drive by rubber-necking it all the way. It’s human nature.
