Jon Snow, broadcaster and author: Journalism makes no sense to the citizen without some emotional engagement. That doesn’t mean we have to sensationalise, or struggle to be emotional in our reporting. But we do have to tell it like it is. If we deny the impact an event has upon us, we deny not only ourselves, but those who depend on us for at least some of their information.
I have cried in the field, most notably during the civil war in El Salvador in the early 1980s. I had never been among the bodies of dead children, nor among the suffering of those left behind. I didn’t cry on camera. But I felt it as I made my reports. I’ve cried in Gaza, too – who that has ever been there hasn’t?
Last Saturday in Paris, I was privileged to interview Dr Louise Herez, a young hospital doctor who had survived one of the horrific attacks on cafes and bars there. She described the dead, and those she had tried to save. Her bottom lip quivered and I was sure she would have to stop the interview, but she made it through, with huge effect. Her account was one of the most concise and yet far-reaching of the whole tragedy. As we spoke, I began to realise it was I who was tearing up.
Those who deny their tears do themselves a disservice. Bottling it up means at some point it has to be dealt with. Too often in the past, reporters turned to drink to defray their emotions.
Andrew Anthony, journalist and author: Journalists and judges are only human, and occasionally all-too-human emotions will come through in their reporting and judgments. But while it’s important to accept this and not make a big fuss, it’s equally important to remember that it’s not what they’re there for. And we certainly wouldn’t want to get to a situation whereby we started to think less of reporters or judges because they failed to demonstrate emotion.
If we were to begin to think that showing emotion was all part of the job, then what emotions would be unacceptable? Where would we draw the line? Would it be OK, for example, for reporters to give vent to their anger, when interviewing someone with whom they disagreed? Would we applaud a judge who described his innermost feelings about a sadistic murderer in explicit and hate-filled terms?
There is necessarily an aspect of restraint that’s required to tell a story without intruding upon it. Harrowing scenes and frightening experiences are best conveyed by those at the centre of them – not by a journalist’s emotional response to those testimonies.
Similarly, we look to judges to transcend their personal feelings and to focus on the legal facts. That they will fail to do so from time to time should be understood and respected, but not become the subject of encouraging applause.
JS Surely emotion is a fundamental in any sentient human being. Without it we are incomplete. Your response seems to me to be that of fear. Fear that we journalists and judges will somehow go over the top. I am arguing that it must be part of the mix. We, the journalists, have been on a journey. In recounting the journey, we rob the consumer of an extraordinarily relevant and human element if we leave out emotion. And then sometimes, as in the case of the Bristol judge, it becomes overwhelming. I think anyone who reads the detail of that appalling case, and then thinks what the judge has had to go through in listening to all the evidence for weeks, will understand the humanity of his response – the journalist, too. If something was as overpowering as that, we damn well need to know about it, and take note. And by golly we have! Somehow you seem rather cold-blooded when it comes to the judge’s humanity, let alone the journalist’s. Where’s your compassion?
AA Cold-bloodied, lacking compassion – yes, I thought I would be so accused. I said quite clearly we should understand and respect such displays of emotion when they involuntarily arise. My point is, both judges and journalists must bring empathy and sympathy to their assessments, but the emotions that really matter in their deliberations do not belong to them.
Like you, I have experienced harrowing testimonies – at the Baby P case, from Cambodian refugees, and have seen death and destruction in foreign lands – but while emotion inevitably informs the reporting of these experiences, it does little to explain them or even to describe them.
If one is called upon to describe, for example, the torture of a child, it doesn’t bring much to the story to reference one’s own feelings. We can take it as read that it’s deeply upsetting, without needing to signal the appropriate emotional response.
And, again, I come back to what are the appropriate emotions? If a TV reporter stopped mid-description of slaughter, and launched into a bitter tirade against “the animals” who committed it, we could understand how that feeling arose, but would we welcome it as a new benchmark of truth and a fuller journalistic journey?
JS So, forgive me, did the judge burst into his testimony to denounce these “animals” who had committed this ghastly crime? No. He cried as you or I might have done. He, poor man, could not hide. We can turn away and shed our tears privately, he could not. The same for the BBC man’s live account. A journalist and a judge cry, and here’s you demanding to know what is an “appropriate’ or inappropriate” show of emotion in this case. What is appropriate is for journalists to report the truth: two grown men cried when wrestling with the magnitude of the horror they had endured in listening to the evidence, full stop. I have yet to cry in the studio, live on telly. But I shall continue to be affected – deeply affected – by what I encounter. It will continue to considerably inform the way I tell the story.
AA My point is that, while completely human, the judge’s tears do not add anything to his judgment. They don’t make it more just. We don’t judge judges by their emotions, and nor should we.
With journalists, it’s a slightly different matter. There are occasions, for example Herb Morrison’s reporting of the Hindenburg disaster, when his tearful cry of “Oh the humanity” captured the appalling nature of the unfolding drama. However, as he later admitted, he thought everyone on board had died. In fact two-thirds survived.
Emotions are sometimes unavoidable. God knows I found myself tearing up last week at the singing of La Marseillaise and the widower denying Islamic State the satisfaction of his hatred. But while a reporter’s emotions may pay testament to his humanity, they should not be mistaken for the path to a deeper truth.
