Scrolling through political and financial articles on the New York Times top news page, one headline sparked my immediate attention and interest: "After Fatal Subway Shove, Asking: Were There No Heroes?"
This generated a sense of morbid curiosity as I became absorbed in every word covering the tragic death of a man pushed onto the subway tracks in NYC. Full of vague expressions of defense, bystanders of the event justified their inability to assist the man facing an oncoming train. The results of these allegations came down to the fact that no one believed they COULD help.
The most interesting element was the wide-spread attack on an amateur student photographer who had captured the last moments of the man's life in a series of over 40 photos. These pictures made their way to publication for the public and resulted in a back lash of "instead of taking pictures, why weren't you trying to help him out?" This student faced the majority of the anger and disappointment of all who witnessed the event that day.
The student claimed the flashes of his camera were to warn the train conductor, that this was the action he was capable of during this tragic circumstance. But at the same time, this sparked a concern that I also feel while watching those commercials of starving third world children or reporters in the midst of any tragic event. There is a line of involvement when it comes to reporting. It's almost as if that line becomes invisible, that a reporter's job is to remain unbiased of a subject, removing themselves from the picture as merely the medium between information and the public. But at what point can we step beyond that boundary? It seems circumstances of life and death to be an obvious scenario to sacrifice any story. But at the same time we must take into consideration the realities of our abilities while also understanding our responsibility to report the real, even extremely tragic, events as they unfold before us.
Reference: "After Fatal Subway Shove, Asking: Were There No Heroes?"
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