When media crosses police lines

I prefer to stick to lighthearted columns – the kind where you may think, God, that writer is stupid, but which at least might give you a little chuckle.

Lately, however, I keep coming back to a question in my mind regarding the media. How far is too far?

Now, technically, I suppose, I am a member of some form of media, whether you count The Daily Campus or working at KPNI, SMU’s radio station. Yet, this is very troubling to me. Being someone for whom being a journalist is a preferred future, I can’t help but hope I don’t cross some of the boundaries that are being crossed.

For example, the police chief in Maryland that is dealing with the sniper case, came to Maryland from Portland, Or. Everyone that has seen his interviews knows he has issues with the media, and most of us probably don’t know why. Apparently, during a drug raid while he was still working in Portland, media helicopters found out about it and came rushing into the scene to televise the event.

The people trapped inside the building were watching TV, and were therefore able to see most of the moves the police were making – where they were trying to break in from, etc. Three officers ended up being shot and one was killed, all because someone had to get a story before the story was even finished.

The defense to this, of course, is that it is the people’s right to know. Well, how many people do you think would have been upset that the raid wasn’t televised at the very moment it was going on, knowing that by not knowing they would have saved a police officer’s life?

It is obvious to me now why the police chief has issues with the media, and why I would not trust them at all.

This begs my previous question – how far is too far? How far does the people’s right to know extend? The answers to these questions are in flux in our country at the moment, with the stories about the government knowing about the Sept. 11 attacks far ahead of time, and questions about how much information the authorities really have on the sniper rampaging through Washington, Virginia and Maryland.

Nine people have been killed already. Could lives be saved by a better working environment between the authorities and the media? Do we, as normal citizens with no law enforcement training, have the right to know all the evidence? Or would this just create a bunch of vigilantes roaming the streets, shooting at any white van that drives by?

There are so many questions to be answered here, and I can only offer my opinion. I’m sure that many will disagree, but hey, what is so interesting about a debate that only three or four people might disagree with?

The media needs to stay out of the way in situations like this. If people need to know something, such as whether to evacuate an area, be on the lookout for a suspicious character or not to loiter around outside your car while pumping gas, the authorities will tell us.

I suppose I am an optimist in this way – the government is not out to get you – if for no other reason than the harsh reality of losing American lives due to non-information probably would not go over so well at election time. I guess you could call that a cynical view of an optimistic mindset.

Reporters report on things, and that is their job, and they have to get down and dirty to break stories sometimes, but I suppose I just wish there were more controls on this.

Issues of national security should not be leaked or unearthed by the press. Who knows who is reading them in some remote corner somewhere, using that in their next plot?

And honestly, who really has the right to know the real reason Britney and Justin broke up other than them? I mean, come on people, have some decency.