Written by Eydie

Coverage of the hell on earth currently in Haiti has fomented some hand wringing, in both the ivory towers of journalism pundits and at the Cheetos-strewn computers of bloggers-come-media critics.

The issue du jour is that journalists are crossing the line, becoming part of the news rather than reporting it. Whether it’s Anderson Cooper saving a bleeding child, or an AP writer offering her personal emotional reaction, some wonder if objectivity is too high a price to pay for compelling news coverage. On its own, the ethics question is a valid one. The media is always being questioned about any bias shown in news reports. And a news story filled with varied, informed sources is much more valuable to fact-seeking readers than one based on a reporter’s personal experience.

The Haiti situation has unexpectedly highlighted certain issues about the news industry, and about the survival of old media and the emergence of new media. Bottom line? The more things change, the more they stay the same–but they’ve got to change nonetheless.

At the 2006 The Vloggies, an Internet video awards show, a big winner was Alive In Baghdad. Created by video bloggers, i.e. vloggers, the web show told the stories about real, “average Yusef” Iraqi citizens, their struggles and determination despite the shortcomings of their own government and of America’s. The vloggers received their award alongside a standing ovation and a few teary eyes. AIB exemplified how new media has succeeded over the old guard: Offering to consumers the information and stories they couldn’t get from mainstream media, while also allowing them to feel a deeper connection to the issues thanks to the interactive nature of digital, such as discussion boards that foster conversations between reporters and readers.

Anderson Cooper’s rush to drag a bleeding boy from a street being peppered with thrown debris was a good thing. And not just for the obvious humanitarian reasons. In the story he filed for CNN about looting, this was just one minor incident shown; the report also included footage such as an interview with a store owner who was trying to keep looters at bay. But in his blog, Mr. Cooper dedicated an entire post to what had happened, garnering hundreds of reader comments. Blogs, for news organizations, are the place to focus on information that’s not quite big enough–or, in this case objective enough–for an outright news story. Thus CNN covered the incident exactly right, adding depth to their overall Haiti coverage.

Lest anyone beg to differ, or lump Mr. Cooper’s action in with the narcissistic nature of certain factions of the blogosphere and personality-driven news, consider Ed Bradley in 1979. The late Mr. Bradley, a well-respected TV reporter best known for 60 Minutes, turned heads when covering the Southeast Asian refugee crisis in 1979 for CBS Reports. After noting how weakly the boat survivors tried to struggle against the tide, he went right into the surf and started helping them himself. Again, this scene was just part of Mr. Bradley’s overall news report on the crisis.

I thought about Mr. Bradley’s behavior in 2001 when, few days after 9-11, Dan Rather was a guest on Late Night With David Letterman and started to cry when talking about covering the attacks. Mr. Letterman comforted him, but in certain journalism circles, he was vilified for being “soft” and “unprofessional.” Around that same time, the magazine Brill’s Content (a short-lived media watchdog publication by Court TV founder Steven Brill) hosted an impassioned discussion about a famous photograph of an Indian man so starved he looked like a barely-living skeleton, laying on a sidewalk as a corpulent Indian denizen blithely stepped around him. Some believed the photographer was cold and cruel for taking the starving man’s picture and not, we assume , offering him help. Others pointed out that a journalist’s first duty is to bear witness and educate the world, and were concerned that once journalists “interfere” with events they will no longer be allowed–by, say, hostile governments–to report on them.

But the new media age, and the way Haiti has been covered, proved that you can do both: Promote humanity by gritting your teeth and covering the worst the world can offer, and engage in humanity by doing the right thing. At least one traditional news boss thinks so. Australian news videographer Richard Moran, of Channel Nine, put down his camera to help dig out a baby girl, along with interpreter Deiby Celestino, who retrieved the dug-out girl. As a result they “lost” the rescue footage to a competitor, which aired the incident as if its own reporter had saved the toddler. Said Channel Nine news director Mark Calvert, “I’m proud of the Nine News team… Yes, they put down their camera to help. But they also filed their story.”