Journalists have an obligation to be watchdogs, to question authority and hold the powerful accountable. To that end, the journalists covering the Virginia Tech Massacre should ask if the authorities responded appropriately when they allowed the campus to remain open after the first two murders.
But asking every student on campus and every John Doe on the street his or her opinion on whether the school should have been locked down is not watchdog journalism. It’s seeding doubt without evidence. It’s planting distrust in the authorities without any indication of malfeasance. It’s answering the question by asking it.
Yes, grill the university president and his administration on this point. That’s appropriate. Delve into the state of mind of the police unraveling the first two killings. That’s investigative journalism. Ask other experts what questions and information the police and the college leadership should have been seeking between the discovery of the first slaughter and beginning of the second. That’s providing the audience with context and holding officials accountable for their actions. Because it is possible that if police dismissed the first two deaths as merely domestic violence, they missed important clues that could have prevented the next 30 deaths. It’s a legitimate question when asked in a setting where it can be analyzed and answered.
But don’t ask witnesses who’ve had to run for their lives. Don’t ask distraught parents. Don’t throw the question into the fray, just to see where it will stick. That’s the tactic of loudmouth shock jocks, not journalists trying to help a nation make sense of a tragedy. When asked repeatedly, of every single person interviewed, that question does nothing to promote accountability and instead becomes an agent of blame, a spark intended to ignite anger as a response to grief.
Questions are powerful tools. But they have to be applied with precision and accuracy. Asked at the wrong time, of the wrong person, a question can become a weapon that causes great harm without achieving any good.
