Crossing the line?
Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 17:37 EST
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Opinion
I can’t believe that my four years at Butler are about to come to an end -- after I finish writing six essays and take my Honors exam, of course. I can’t believe that my time writing a weekly Opinion column for Dawgnet has come to an end.
Four years ago, when I came to Butler, we were in the throes of the 2004 Presidential election. I ate, slept and breathed the race between John Kerry and George W. Bush. Based upon my three years of being a student at Butler University, I have noticed two different philosophies that professors have when it comes to evaluating, assessing and ultimately grading students. The drastic differences between these philosophies ultimately hurt students.
I did not realize this until one of my professors shared his thoughts on grade inflation to a small group of students before class. He told us that more students are getting “A’s” and “B’s” than they did when he first starting teaching at Butler a long time ago. Imagine that you purchased a repeated service from a company. After purchasing the service you expect the service to be rendered each time that the service is paid for. If the company fails to provide the service at any point you expect to be compensated by the company.
One way to think of Butler University is that it is a business and the students are the paying customers. Compared to the K-12 public school system, students choose to attend Butler. Children are essentially coerced to attend a public school or they and their patents face penalties. On April 16, I returned to my apartment in the Apartment Village at about 4 p.m. It was sunny and 75 degrees and I was loving the fact that I was done with class for the day. Finding myself to be the first of my four roommates to arrive home, I proceeded into my bedroom where I started to send some e-mails.
Ten minutes later, I looked up to find a man standing at my bedroom door. I remember thinking to myself, “I am about to be raped.” A few weeks ago, I commented on a story that I had read in my diocesan newspaper, "The Catholic Moment," about the bishop’s call for catholics to boycott the Susan G. Komen Foundation Race for the Cure, on account of the fact that the Komen Foundation gives grants to Planned Parenthood so the organization can provide mammograms and other such services having to do with preventing or catching breast cancer early. However, Planned Parenthood is also an organization that will provide women with contraception and access to abortion, therefore going against the “pro-life” dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.
You may have seen the story on Channel 13. He was riding a motorcycle and wrecked into a truck. My mother, who saw the explosion from the backyard, made the 911 call. He was dead instantly.
As I approached my driveway, I was overwhelmed with panic that the army of police cars and fire trucks were at my house, but they weren’t. I was lucky.
Reality hit me like a freight train when my mother told me the story. All of our neighbors were standing outside in shock at what happened. Cars belonging to the young man’s friends and family lined the street. Looking through the trees, I could see light shimmering off of something white -- the young man covered in a neighbor’s bed sheet, his mother barely standing by her son’s lifeless body.
After all of the cars left, a truck pulled up to the yellow tape. A woman got out of the car making the most ungodly sound I’ve ever heard. The young man was her child’s father. The sounds of her screams pierced my spine each time one bellowed out. She collapsed to the ground, screaming in disbelief. Never before had I felt so utterly helpless. I wanted desperately to reach out to this woman, to let her know that someone is there for her, but I knew I could not do that. It was not my place to invade this woman’s tragic moment, and it also wasn’t the place of the Channel 13 camera man who was getting it all on tape.
Yes, outside the yellow crime scene tape stood a man with a camera filming everything. Taking advantage of a family’s lowest moment. And what for? For 15 seconds worth of B-roll to go with the anchor’s (misinformed) commentary. For one more pair of eyeballs tuning into WTHR instead of some other local channel. For ratings.
A stranger stood by as a mother was experiencing the most unimaginable moment of her life with a camera so that Channel 13 would get ratings. What the hell.
I know that the man was only doing his job, but before you are a journalist, you are a human being. As a human being you know what is fair game and what is too invasive, and this was beyond the scope of invasion, it was amoral. The world is not a better place today because he “just did his job” as a mother stood in the rain for hours by her deceased son’s body waiting for police to figure out what happened. The job of journalists is to inform and inspire improvement in the world, not to exploit people in their lowest moments so that they can get 15 seconds of “usable” footage.
Today, as a mother woke up hoping what she experienced last night was only a nightmare, I hope he woke up well-rested knowing that he “just did his job”.