Bond's Broadcast

A tragedy.

People in the media wonder why the general public has no trust in them or on an even broader scale a disdain for the media in general.

I’d like to take a few lines of this column, which is running on a day I usually do not include a column, to say that the radio people from Australia who phoned Kate’s hospital room pretending to be the Queen checking on her granddaughter should be humiliated and ashamed.

First I want to clearly say there was nothing about this that passed for entertainment or even fair-minded journalism.

I acknowledge the players involved are public figures and as such fall victim to pranks and invasions of privacy.

However, in the essence of the call to the princesses room, the young nurse who took the call was duped and now is gone forever.

It really doesn’t matter what the cause of death is – although if it is related to the call it is unforgivable – just simply no excuse for that.

She was a nurse – not a public figure. This heartless act in the name of humor put this young lady in a position of uncertainty and exposure there should be no recourse for those who caused this but to lose their jobs.

This news wasn’t something we can even call important and to impersonate the Queen simply shows a lack of character or ethics of any kind.

You know, and many may realize this already, had the nurse offered up that information in the United States – even if it was to some high ranking official – that individual would lose the job as well as likely be fined.

I am not sure what the media has evolved to.

I am confident that the news talk show hosts as they proclaim themselves to be do not truly have the goodwill of society in their best interests.

We have to take today and make our work as journalists a true coverage and reporting of the facts not turn it into political bickering and finger pointing. News coverage is serious business at my house and any media outlet that I run.

In reality I have to close my thoughts and comments about this incident with a comment about the subway death this week in New York.

A journalists job – or a photographer’s job – is to record the news in whatever fashion, not be part of the news.

Those who are critical of the photographer who took the picture must understand his job is to record the event via his camera. The lenses he uses can put him 150 feet or more away from an event and make it look like he was right on top of it.

It’s easy for people to be critical of his lack of action in saving the man, all-the-while as he plied his trade hundreds stood by and allowed it to happen.

Now I must say, as an editor of over 35 years, I would have never run the picture of the man trying to climb out of the subway any more than would I have run pictures or footage of someone falling from the Twin Towers.

There are some moments of terror and tragedy that should never be shared with anyone.

Shame on those who take human tragedy and turn it into ratings and/or profits.

You should be ashamed.

And so, for another week, thanks and thirty.

Contact Hank Bond via email at [email protected]