It was a horrifying tragedy. 27 girls and counselors attending Texas’ Camp Mystic lost their lives when the state was hit with flash floods. Some reporters like CNN’s Pamela Brown and NBC’s Jenna Bush Hager couldn’t cover the catastrophe without crying.
Their emotions overtook them, making it difficult for them to cover the story. Some 160 people are missing, at least 131 are dead.
“It’s too much to bear,” said Pamela Brown, choking back tears, standing near the cabins. She spent time at the camp as a young child and made the point that parents may be receiving letters from their now-dead children who wrote to them from the camp.
In a live shot, she talked about the difficulty of reporting on the tragedy. “I can’t stop thinking about the fact…about those little girls who were in their decorated bunk beds…waking up to horror.”
The same was true for NBC News’ Today with Jenna and Friends host Jenna Bush Hager, who discussed the catastrophic flooding at the camp where so many of her friends attended. As she reflected on the devastation, she revealed she had recently sent her daughters to a nearby Texas camp.
She had deep ties to Camp Mystic, located 90 miles from San Antonio.
“My mom was a drama counselor there,” she said, fighting back tears. “Many of my friends were there, had their kids there last week, and the stories I heard over the past couple of days were beautiful and heartbreaking.”
Are tears shed by television news personalities appropriate? Do they cross a line between covering a story and becoming emotionally invested in it? The short answer is no. This is not bad journalism. Some stories hit reporters harder than others, and we can’t expect to be automatons.
One Canadian anchor, following a report on the Ukraine war, cried in the studio while seeing a soldier find a friend alive in the rubble two months after people thought he was dead. “I’m sorry, it’s so emotional.”
Viewers praised her, saying she was a “genuine reporter” who gave a “realistic response” and showed “profound humanity.” It’s true.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper has fought back tears on several occasions, including when his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, died, when he was covering the Israel-Hamas war, and when he read the names of Orlando nightclub shooting victims. When TV personalities show their emotions, it actually brings the tragedy into perspective, almost mimicking visceral reactions nationwide.
And probably the most famous ‘tearing up on TV’ moment goes to Walter Cronkite on November 23rd, 1963. He had to announce that President John F. Kennedy had been “pronounced dead” at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. He took off his glasses and choked up, tears in his eyes.
It’s happened to me several times. As a cub reporter at New York 1 News in the early ‘90s, police reported, over one of their scanners we monitored, that a barely breathing infant was languishing in a trash dumpster in Harlem. Just hearing the words made me teary. Covering it was almost unbearable. I didn’t have the experience to know how to compartmentalize my feelings. That’s the only way to get through such awful episodes.
On the streets of D.C., covering the police department, I learned quickly to put on a stoic face when I arrived on the scene of unspeakable tragedies. Like when I reported a triple homicide. Three young Starbucks workers were murdered in the store in a robbery gone bad. Or when I interviewed a sobbing mother whose son was killed by police in front of her. Or when I showed up, and two infants were found dead in a crib in sweltering heat with bugs in their bottles.
The world is full of hatred, evil acts, and immorality. Being that close to it day by day is exhausting. And it’s ok, every once in a while, not to have control of your emotions.
On 9/11, when a plane hit the Pentagon, I was in a building overlooking the crash site. I reported for 11 straight hours on TV, several times fighting back tears as the death toll multiplied. I expressed fear when reports came in that there was another plane coming toward D.C., and our 20-plus-floor structure was in the flight path. I had to work without a producer who told us we were crazy to stay, and she was “outta here.”
In a modern twist, I almost fell for an AI report that said MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who reportedly earns $30 million a year, didn’t just report the story in Texas, she stepped into it. Many websites claimed that she “wrote a letter — by hand — to 27 families whose daughters never made it home.” It alleged that inside the envelope was a silver bracelet engraved with 27 names. Then it said that she donated $3 million and “disappeared from the news cycle.” All of it was false, including the pictures. An image circulated of Maddow rescuing an elderly woman whose hands were different colors.
In her actual report from a studio, Maddow’s voice did crack when reporting the death toll. But she immediately pivoted to the blame game.
I have less patience when political hosts, like CNN’s Van Jones, fought back tears when Trump won the last election. “It’s not the elite who are going to pay the price. It’s people who woke up with a dream and are going to bed with a nightmare.”
When it comes to reporting on the atrocities of this world, viewers need to have compassion and understanding for anchors and reporters giving in to their emotions. We’re only human.
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Unusual and interesting angle to news reporting, especially the exposure of bogus emotion for political points.