Impartiality and Truth in Media
challenges and unparalleled successes, along with the tragedies that we still grieve – especially the martyrdom of colleagues who risked everything for the truth. From these vignettes we learn the exterior trajectory of the institution’s history. The second category explores the interior, unseen trajectory of our colleagues’ human experiences out in the field. These were written mainly by correspondents and envoys covering major events such as wars, natural disasters, famines, and other such human tragedies. Here we find journalists facing the ordeal of being torn between their professional duty and their personal feelings.
Their duty obliges them to give a full picture of the event being covered and to resist the inclination to sympathise openly with the victims. But this makes them appear ‘impartial’ in a situation where impartiality is almost impossible. Can a prey be put on equal footing with the predator in news reporting, as though each side were equally justified? Does this not give the impression of justifying the predator’s act, at least partly? How are they to channel the overflowing emotions that inevitably fill the heart of the reporter, cameraman, or story writer when they see child victims, for example?
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