I realize I’m leaving myself wide open here, but I’m uncomfortable with the wall-to-wall coverage of the tragic deaths of Webster firefighters Mike Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka. Photographers need their shots, obviously, but live Tweeting from the funerals? It feels perverse, and I’m not sure what the news value is.
My co-worker, Jeremy Moule, disagrees. He says the public needs to understand that Chiapperini and Kaczowka were real people; they deserve that, he says, given that they chose to risk their lives for the public good. I completely agree, but I think you can do that without the funeral play-by-play.
Another co-worker, Eric Rezsnyak, says the news value is questionable and that the media seems to be trying to out-grieve each other. You need to collapse to the floor wailing, he says, or else be accused of not being sad enough. The irony is that approach is about the mourners, and not the mourned.
This article appears in Dec 26, 2012 – Jan 1, 2013.
I actually feel somewhere in the middle regarding this. On the one hand, almost every local news story since Christmas Eve has been about some angle of this terrible event. We do not need this amount of coverage. It is not healthly for anyone. It is interesting and appalling (to me) how much the stories have focused on the psychopath who killed them, rather than on who these two men were. And even less has focused on the two injured firefighters, one of whom’s health was downgraded to guarded yesterday (?) (there’ve been so many stories about this it all blurs together, which is the pt. of this article). I’d like to hear much more about Mike Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka, rather than the lunatic who killed them. However two firefighters being murdered in cold blood on Christmas Eve responding to a fire is also a BIG deal. I’ve read updated stories from Germany, Britain and Canada about this. Unfortunately Webster, NY is now world-famous as a summer resort town where lunatics armed with semi automatic assault rifles roam, waiting to gun down volunteer public servants. I do think the local media could stop their package of “sad” music and report a bit more on other stories, like the fiscal cliff, poverty in Rochester, crime in Rochester, racism in county institutions, our crumbling education system (both in the city and suburbs), our damaged infrastructure and our compulsive need to find happiness by buying more ‘things’.
This is not about the media, it is not about guns, it is not about anything more than a community stunned and grieving a terrible event at an emotional time of year! Christmas to most of us is a time of joy and celebration. Wars stopped at Christmas time many times in our history. I have friends who felt that they needed to go to the services because they were so touched by the events. I have friends who watched the funeral coverage on television as a part of their own personal mourning.
The fact that you wrote this comment saddens me. Christmas eve and Christmas changed for many people this year. Your lack of understanding this event in context is the problem…not the coverage!
Actually Clint I don’t think you read my comment carefully enough. I have been appalled at how much the coverage of this tragedy has focused on the gunman, not Mike Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka. It is a terrible time of year to have such tragedies. I have lost close family members and friends close to the holidays. Having this event occur at any time is sad, especially on Christmas Eve. But from Dec. 27th until the funerals, I turned the TV off. I don’t need to hear about it every time I turn on the news and I know many people feel the same way I do. There are enough negative things in the world without having to listen “up to the minute”, or having “more local news, more local experience”, and then hear BREAKING NEWS every time one of the investigators opens their mouth about it. Once we know the terrible facts and have mourned their loss, the world turns away. Not because we are unfeeling, but because we see the world as it is, rather than as it should be. There are terrible events happening every day. People die in terrible circumstances every day. People are hurt, maimed, tortured, shot, stabbed, abused, neglected, harassed, violated… every day. Rather than be in a continual state of mourning for people I have never known, I will take what has happened and do what I can with my very limited abilities to control events beyond me, to make the world less harsh, less gritty and less violent. This is a brand new year and I intend to not spend it mourning the people we have all lost but moving forward to do what I can to honor their loss so this world might just be a better place, rather than hurling caustic comments at complete strangers over the Internet. Happy New Year.
Some news is a snooze.
Some news is a muse.
Some news is the blues.
Some news is a ruse.
And some news is so shocking it wakes us out of localized, sleepy patterns and requires us to observe the larger movements of our society and culture. This tragedy falls into the last category and defies easy journalistic approach.
Best regards to all reporters who have struggled to both cover this painful story and help us all come to terms with its monumental sadness.
CHRISTINE CARRIE FIEN –
You are correct . The coverage of the Webster shootings (as with those of Newtown) quickly ceased being a conveyance of the news and quickly became a ghoulish and self-serving rehash of a few facts as the media paraded the victims as part of their quest for higher ratings and readership/viewership.
In the last decade the Rochester area has experienced over FOUR HUNDRED homicides. One is given to wonder why the public fixates on the deaths of two volunteer firemen, terrible as those deaths were, yet ignores the horrendous and inexcusable body count over the last 10 years.
I was hoping to see an editorial from City News about the Webster shootings. I was appalled to see only one paragraph about this tragedy.
With all due respect to those who have taken a moment to share their opinions, several of which I agree, people grieve in different ways. Many of us are trying to make sense of something that makes no sense. While the Newtown shooting may have touched a few of us, the Webster shootings touched thousands of us, both directly and by varying degrees of separation.
I had a connection to Tomasz Kaczoka, attended the calling hours, funeral, and spent time on Christmas day and New Year’s Eve with the firefighters at the West Webster Fire Department.
I think Ms. Fien’s comment is a bit callous and extremely disrespectful to Tomasz Kackzowka, Mike Chiapperini, their families, friends, and co-workers, especially by comparing their deaths to the number of Rochester’s homicides over the past decade.
I ask this: Of those 400 homicides, how many of them were people who dedicate their lives to protecting the lives of others? How many of them were killed on Christmas Eve? How many of them set the new precedent of luring a firefighter, only to be murdered, while trying to protect the lives of people like you and me?
Ms. Fien, do you realize that no firefighter has ever been shot in the line of duty? Do you realize the danger that this event has the power to become? The idea of mentally disturbed men with assault weapons, as they try to out-do each other, in what is turning into some insane spitting contest to see who can out-do the last shooter before offing themselves, is frightening!
In closing, I would like to urge Ms. Fien and Mr. Rezsnyak to consider the possibility that this is about both the mourners, AND the mourned. More than that, it is about grieving and an outpouring of support, sympathy and empathy; the likes of which I have never seen first hand.