Having solved all of the other problems in my home state, Kentucky senators have now tackled the vexing problem of 911-call privacy. A Senate committee approved legislation that would forbid broadcasting the calls on TV, the radio or online.
The Courier-Journal in Louisville reports that the bill has received high-level legislative support:
The Kentucky Open Records Act requires emergency dispatch centers to make 911 calls available to the public when requested. That has allowed the airing of some emotional accounts, including the first reports of a teen having her feet severed on a Louisville thrill ride in 2007 and the deadly crash of Comair flight 5191 at Blue Grass Airport in 2006.
The bill approved yesterday would allow people to listen to the calls and take notes and to obtain written transcripts of calls.
The measure requires certain details to be deleted, including the identity of callers, medical information and statements that could compromise a criminal investigation or create prejudice in court cases.
The sponsor, Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, said the legislation seeks to protect the public from having highly emotional 911 calls broadcast to the world.
Florence Police Chief Tom Szurlinski told lawmakers yesterday that releasing recordings of 911 calls for broadcast on TV and radio creates emotional trauma for the callers.
“It’s almost like they’re being victimized a second time,” Szurlinski said. “And they’re looking to the government for help.”
It’s a bad idea.
Two stories from just this past weekend illustrate how 911 calls may be news. No doubt, you have heard about the story of the man who called 911 because he was angry that the local Burger King had run out of lemonade.
And then there was the man who called 911 this weekend when a store clerk refused to sell him beer.
These are two examples of how people abuse 911, and journalists should report on that. Of course, it is nowhere near as effective if we do not have actual access to the 911 calls.
Here is a case in which 911 tapes proved that dispatchers in Indiana sent emergency squads to the wrong address.
In Detroit, repeated calls about a frozen corpse were apparently ignored.
The Herald-Tribune in Sarasota, Fla., reports that there are hundreds of 911 errors in Florida every year:
Records show that Florida’s 911 call takers and dispatchers – the vital link between emergency responders and distressed callers – send help to the wrong address or neglect to send any help at all.
They fall asleep on the job and abandon their posts to run errands. They argue with heart attack victims and hang up on hysterical callers.
In the most egregious cases, 911 workers listen to callers’ plea for help and simply decide not to send a police officer or ambulance.
Despite chronic errors and even deaths, state officials and many local agencies have done little to stop the mistakes.
The (Lakeland, Fla.) Ledger recently compiled a list of examples of mistakes made at 911 call centers.
I have, over the years, used several 911-call case studies in teaching broadcast ethics. One case involves a car that ended up in a Miami canal. The 911 tape shows that the dispatcher didn’t make much of an attempt to help the victim out of the car, despite what police claimed. The tape also shows the call was transferred while the car was sinking and that there was no E-911 tracing at the time.
911 calls provide important insight into criminal cases, such as this one in Chattanooga, Tenn.
One reason we may be seeing this kind of legislative blowback is because of the misconception that journalists only use 911 calls to make stories more sensational. My Poynter colleague Bob Steele and I wrote ethical guidelines for when and how to use 911 calls on the air and online. Those guidelines include:
What is the journalistic purpose for airing the 911 call? Does using the call help better tell the story in a way that is not sensational? Can the 911 tape illuminate broader issues about the 911 system and its effectiveness? Can using the tape help critically examine the 911 system or help illustrate how effectively the system works? When deciding to use the call, ask yourself these questions about the 911 system: Can the call:
- illustrate why cities need E-911 capabilities for cell phones?
- examine whether the dispatcher acted properly?
- expose problems with the way police responded to the call?
- shed light on how municipalities often have to transfer calls from one jurisdiction to another, even within the same county, wasting precious time?
Consider the stakeholders. How old is the caller? What is the caller’s mental capacity? What pressure is the caller under? How prominent is the caller in the community? Is the caller a public figure? How will airing the call affect the caller, the audience and others who might have to call 911 in the future? Have family members of the caller heard the tape? How will you prepare the audience to hear what may be disturbing?
What do you know about the backgrounds of the people who are involved in the 911 call? Does the dispatcher, for example, have a great service record? How many other calls have come from the caller’s location? What might the dispatcher know about the caller that does not show up on the tape?
What don’t you know about the conditions under which the call was made? Are you certain you have heard the entire call? Was there more than one call?
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