Breaking News!

Have you noticed that the Media – especially television and electronic (internet) news – has developed an insatiable, and quite frankly frenetic, need to know?

Oh, sure, the Media has always fed the public’s appetite for information, and has long championed the public's “need to know,” but it seems to me that the Media has become obsessed with not simply reporting the news as it happens, but with delivering the whole story almost within moments of it breaking.

It seems that people want answers almost as soon as they know that something is happening.

Case in point: the VIA derailment in Burlington on Sunday.

News crews were on the scene like fleas on a dog, jockeying for position to get the best coverage of the carnage. I don’t blame them for this: news is a business and carnage sells. There’s an old newspaper axiom: If it bleeds, it leads.

Let’s be honest with ourselves; even if we protest the need for the victims or casualties to have some privacy, we are drawn to incidents like vehicle collisions, train wrecks, and plane crashes. It is compelling drama, especially when taking place before our eyes in real time.

It isn’t the overall coverage to which I object, it’s the probing questions and the unrealistic expectation that there are immediate answers to be had, if only the questions are repeated loudly enough.

I have been on various emergency management courses, and invariably the topic of dealing with the media is covered. Presenters cannot stress enough the need to have one voice speak for whichever group, organization, etc, is experiencing the emergency.

That spokesperson needs to remain calm, be as open as possible and, most importantly, stick to the facts. Speculation is to be avoided at all costs.

As Sgt Friday would say, “Just the facts, Ma’am.”

And yet, that is just what the media demands: speculation.

Watching the coverage of the VIA derailment on various channels I heard, over and over, reporters asking the VIA official variations on the question, “what caused the derailment?”

Repeatedly the official replied, “It is too soon to determine that. We will be co-operating with the TSB [Transportation Safety Board] in their investigation, and they will let us know their findings.”

But that wasn’t good enough. The derailment occurred at approximately 3:45 pm on Sunday afternoon. I got the sense, watching the events unfold on tv, that if the reporters couldn’t state the cause of the crash right then and there, they certainly expected to be able to “go live” with the answer on the six o’clock news.

Even when, later in the afternoon, the TSB investigator announced that a full investigation would likely take about nine months, reporters were not to be dissuaded from asking him to offer some speculation.

To his credit he repeatedly insisted that he could not and would not speculate as to the cause, and could only confirm facts that were known to that point. The investigation would continue, and information would be released as it became known and as appropriate.

On Thursday the TSB offered one tidbit of information: the train had been traveling at 67 mph (107 km/h), just over four times greater than the allowable speed of 15 mph (24 km/h) when switching tracks.

The reaction to the latest revelation – that the train was traveling at four times the speed limit – was both predictable and hyperbolic.

Talking heads on network news expressed shock, and even outrage, pronouncing the speed as “reckless.”

[Note: I do not know what happened, nor am I willing to speculate. I would like to point out, however, that this “reckless” speed is actually slower than the main line limit it had been following up until the derailment.]

I got the impression, watching the interview with TSB official Tom Griffiths, that he may have regretted releasing that information. Rather than placate their curiousity, it fuelled it, with reporters again asking him to speculate on information not yet available: who was at the controls, were the signals working, was it human or mechanical error?

Although he remained remarkably calm, he also seemed frustrated with making the same statements over and over in response to these questions: we don’t know, our investigation continues, we have yet to determine that, we have no way of knowing.

I understand that people want to know, but is there really a need for such an immediate determination?

Realistically, I don’t expect reporters to just shrug and walk away the first time a spokesperson declines to comment, or advises that it may take days, weeks, or months to determine the answers to their questions.

But, really, to keep pressing for speculation seems, to me, so pointless.

It’s not just this incident, either. Whether it’s a suspicious house fire, a suspicious death, or even a cruise ship running aground, reporters demand to know not only what happened but why, and who is to be held responsible.

Again, I recognize that that is their job. But sometimes the answers are not immediately forthcoming; not because information is being deliberately withheld, but simply because the investigation has not produced results.

Perhaps reporters, like the general public, have grown too accustomed to tv crime dramas like CSI, or Bones, and expect that all questions will be answered by the third commercial break.

I watched a very interesting episode of The Agenda on TVO last week, that offers some insight into this urgent and immediate need to know that seems to be plaguing the Media lately.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the Media is a business. In fact, it’s big business. While we viewers like flipping back-and-forth between the various channels available to us – and checking multiple news-related websites – the Media outlets are very much in competition with one another.

New to this competitive climate, and greatly influencing the responses of the “established” media, are web-based news agglomerators, blogs, and Twitter.

Where at one time a tv or print news source could take the time to develop a story fully, they are now in a race with a horde of thumb-typing “citizen journalists” who instantly report on breaking news in 140-character chunks.

The “Twitterverse” is abuzz with people sharing frequent and succinct snippets of information. Not only do they want an answer to their questions, they want it NOW.

Everyone, it seems, from politicians to celebrities to businesses large and small are on Twitter. It is a great medium for delivering short, succinct messages: a restaurant advising potential customers of its daily specials; a movie star letting fans know of an upcoming appearance on a talk show; politicians taking credit for one thing or another.

But is this news? Can anyone provide enough information in 140 characters to truly satisfy anyone’s need to know?

For that matter, do audiences have enough patience to wait for more details, for an investigation to run its course, or for information to be released in due course?

Is this a case of the tail wagging the dog? Is the viewing/reading public demanding immediate answers to the questions of the day? Or are the Media outlets so intent on winning, keeping and increasing their audience that they are racing to provide answers when none are yet available?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I would rather wait for the facts to come to light in due course than to rush to speculation and, as often is the case, erroneous information that must later be corrected.

But… that’s just my opinion.