Dunce anchors on air and the risk of a ‘serious accident’ in journalism

When I was young, I heard of managers who kicked doors, yelled at subordinates, brought too much emotion and personality to work. I was not managed by anyone like that. And I hope (and prepare) not to be that awful guy, although sometimes it happens in the form of sarcasm, of ridicule.

Believe me, though, when I am being ridiculous I leave no doubt, I outline the ridiculous very neatly, with little or no chance of noise. That is the case in this post. I confirm the idea of psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion: laughter has a corrosive power (in the excellent sense of weakening the rust of prejudice and hatred, for example).

In the role of journalist, I face countless moral and ethical dilemmas, which does not shake me. I trained for it at university, at work, in a professional development that never stopped. A piece of news has to be truly very bad to throw me off balance. When that is the case, I tend to resolve it in individual therapy. I ask myself questions such as “how is this important to me?” (and avoid “why is it important to me,” in the idea of improving the quality of the inquiry). Those are my credentials as a reporter and documentary maker.

Now, back to the ridiculous. A few years ago, I remember a TV reporter breathlessly doing a “live cut-in” to tell of the horror she had experienced on the street. She had seen a man get out of a car to threaten another with an iron bar. I do not know what world the reporter lived in to be stunned by “just another day at work.”

On this morning’s newscast — and note that I am now doing an exercise not to be snobbish, not to persecute, not to, I don’t know, kick a dead dog? — on a newscast this morning the anchor stopped the news to say that the news was very bad, that it was very hard to live in so cruel a world, and that they (the worst part is this: he was speaking on behalf of the brand, of an entire team that gets up before dawn) were doing the incredible job of easing the weight of those terrible stories. They were reports about car accidents.

I take this opportunity of text to ask: what defines a “serious” accident? Is it an accident with a death? An accident with more than one injured? An accident that jams traffic for x time, for y distance? If every accident is “serious,” none is serious.

Just kidding!