Changing Hawaii
By Diane Yukihiro Chang
Monday, April 22, 1996
Twenty years ago, as a recent journalism graduate, I was assigned a feature on a young girl. She had been killed instantly when a speeding car slammed into her Kaneohe bus stop, as she was awaiting a ride home from school.
That meant interviewing police officers, witnesses to the accident, and the student's classmates and teachers. But the hardest part was talking to her parents.
Their eyes were glassy with tears as they shared scrapbooks and albums, lovingly touching photos while they answered my queries. When they showed me a poem that their daughter had penned - about her appreciation of flowers, nature and the privilege of life - I almost lost it.
But I didn't, and simply went on to the next question.
Wrote the story. Editor loved it. Ran it on page one. Readers raved about how "nice" it was. So why did I feel so crummy?
It suddenly came clear to me, 20 years later, after watching coverage of the one-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.
We were all subjected again to those hauntingly familiar TV images: the dead baby in the firefighter's arms, rescue workers doubled over with emotion, bloody survivors staggering from the concrete carnage once known as the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
But this time, voyeuristically speaking, it was much harder to take.
Twelve months ago, when the news broke, all we knew in Hawaii was that more than a hundred nameless, faceless people had died in the middle of the mainland for an inexplicable reason. Thank goodness crazy things like that didn't happen here, we told ourselves.
But last week, at the widely publicized anniversary ceremony beamed from Oklahoma, an announcer read all 168 names of those who died in the blast, and newscasts showed all 168 faces. There were 168 seconds of silence - before the cacophony of interviews with still-grieving family members.
Members of the national press descended on the living rooms of these relatives, where they faced a battery of cameras, lights and microphones before being asked, "Do you still miss him?" and "Have you gotten over her death?" Obvious questions with obvious answers.
YET the inquiries continue. Why? Because the public seems to want to know - or at least journalism types believe that the people want to know - the gory details.
Do you? Most of us in the media think so. We look at the numbers. We sell more newspapers when a catastrophe is on the cover. Newscasts draw more viewers when there is a live hostage-taking on the screen.
The community appears to crave such morbid minutia. Which is why, when an accident or homicide or some other awful thing happens, reporters chase it down. It is why they ask the obvious questions, why they pursue the talking heads or witnesses with unabashed and almost inhuman tenacity. It is why I asked those parents to reminisce about their dead daughter.
Believe me, journalists will keep doing this until they are told to stop. Because silence equates approval.