Whistler – When I was 14, an arsonist set fire to the Lower Mainland church where my dad was the pastor. Though I’m sure the crime itself was frightening to me at the time, what I remember most about the fire was how upset I was when an article appeared in a local newspaper a few days later.
The article contained several incorrect details, including someone other than my father being named as the church pastor. I’m not sure whether I had identified my aspiration to be a journalist back then, but the memory of my disappointment and surprise at the errors in the article came back to me last week when the Vancouver, national and international media latched onto the story of the Excalibur Gondola incident.
Now, I’m usually one of the first to speak up in conversations when someone is blaming “the media” for the world’s problems. But generally speaking, the false information and sensationalism that characterized the early coverage of the Excalibur tower collapse had me agreeing with all those gleeful media-bashers out there.
As a journalist who has been faced with trying to cover a breaking news story when I can’t get to the scene, I can relate to the challenges of trying to describe a situation I don’t fully understand. But sadly, instead of taking the time to figure out what was really going on, many of my fellow reporters seemed to simply fill in the blanks in order to get the story on the air or posted to the web immediately.
Early reports said a vehicle had run into the gondola tower, causing it to fall. Other accounts erroneously said several gondola cars came free from the cable when the tower went down.
It was frustrating to see articles declare that people were “trapped” in the gondola cars for four hours when I personally saw the first people rescued from a gondola car about 1.5 hours after the tower split in half.
I’m sure the experience was frightening for the 53 people who were stuck on the gondola wondering what was going on, and especially traumatic for those who were in cabins that hit the ground or dropped and jolted significantly. But the giant headline “Terror on the mountain”? Really?
Other media outlets assigned the wrong job titles to people quoted in online stories. It also didn’t take long for the connection to the brand new Peak 2 Peak Gondola to be made, with some reporters feeling the need to point out that Doppelmayr made both the collapsed tower and the new, record-breaking Peak 2 Peak.
So, let’s see, that’s two of thousands of lifts Doppelmayr has constructed worldwide.
The 2010 Games was another manufactured connection to the gondola story, even though the Excalibur isn’t part of the infrastructure to be used for Olympic or Paralympic events. I can only imagine what the people at VANOC were thinking when they started getting calls from reporters looking for comment on the gondola story.
I have to say the low point for me was a press conference held Wednesday at the Conference Centre, where it was clear from the questions being fired at Doug Forseth that half the journalists in the room weren’t even listening to what was being said. And they’re the ones relaying the information to the masses?
It’s no wonder the media is often blamed for getting the story wrong or missing crucial details.
Now comes the time for some hard questions. If the story wasn’t about something so close to home, would we have wanted to read the sensational version? If the public isn’t interested in that kind of coverage, how come it’s often what the public gets?
What about the demands for “instant” and constant news updates and how that might be impacting journalistic integrity? And where do rumours and citizen journalism fit into the equation?
As long as information is a consumer product and humans are reporting the news, I’m afraid “truth” will continue to be enigmatic.
