I owe Janet Reno.

We've never met, and she has no idea how she's helped me, but the former Attorney General, who later ran for governor of Florida, unwittingly reminded me about discretion in the news business.

During her campaign, Reno collapsed in the middle of a speech. A camera was rolling, and it captured Reno falling to the floor with a sickening "THUD!!". The moment I saw the footage, I felt ill. That fall was just so disturbing, so painful to watch, I couldn't bring myself to use it. At the time, we didn't know whether or not she was seriously hurt, and in the back of my mind I wondered, “Uh-oh, will this turn out to be footage of a public figure... well... passing away?” So I cut around it, showing Reno at the podium, then an audience shot, and then a shot of her already on the floor, with people all around, helping her. I made sure the producer and EP agreed with the approach.

Colleagues my age and older praised our decision. But the twenty-and-thirtysomethings were aghast. How could you not use such COMPELLING pictures, they wondered. Most of our competitors seemed to feel that way too. They not only showed the entire collapse, they put it in their promos!

The news value of the Reno story was clear, and so was the writer’s task: Tell folks that she fainted, give the latest on her condition, and allude to the critics who began to question whether she's healthy enough to be governor. Our viewers knew exactly what happened and saw a gripping description of it on the screen. Showing the graphic and disturbing footage of a 63-year-old woman losing consciousness and falling down would have added nothing to the story except cheap shock value.

There is a mentality among some newspeople that holds, “If we’ve got it, we show it.” They may throw on a disclaimer just to be safe, but in their view, who are they to hold back powerful, emotional, titillating stuff just because it may offend, or even disgust? Doesn’t the public have a right to know? And isn’t it our job to bring that stuff to them?

No, it’s not.

Our job is to inform. Yes, we do it in the strongest, most powerful way possible. But we do not suspend our roles as human beings, nor do we abandon the values of decency and taste.

A few years ago a group of teenagers tried to get on the MTV program, “Jackass”, by recording themselves dodging a speeding car. But their timing was off, and one youngster got hit. Hard. The impact threw him onto the windshield, then flung him to the ground. All caught on tape. The local police released that awful video to the media, “as a warning to parents.” (How about a warning to police: Stay out of the news business!) These misguided kids were after one thing: to get on TV. And we were about to give them their wish, rewarding them for nearly getting one of their friends killed! It was sick. Far from being a “warning” to anyone, one could imagine other teens watching that video and saying, “Cool! They’re on the news!”

We ran the story, and the video, but we cut out the shots of the car hitting the boy. One of our competitors did a full-length anchor package, and showed the moment of impact SIX times, including several times in slow motion.

Some newsrooms do set standards. Some won’t show dead bodies. Others cover the faces of rape victims, or blur the faces of children. Almost no one will show a suicide (although I was once ordered to). Unfortunately, it may not be possible to have more detailed guidelines than that, because of how different and diverse we all are. What offends one person may intrigue or even excite another. One producer I know had no problem showing bodies on the air. But, as a dog lover, he recoiled at the sight of a deceased Rottweiler on the ground. Once I had to show close-up pictures of a little boy, tears streaming down his face, sobbing uncontrollably, trying to speak but choking on the words, because his father had just been killed. The tape editor was crying. I was crying. But the bright-eyed anchor popped her head into the room, looked at the monitor, smiled, and exclaimed, “Wow! Terrific stuff!”

It begins with your own personal code. Tell the story. Tell it well. Use the best stuff you’ve got. But don’t shock, offend or disgust people just for the sake of shocking, offending, or disgusting. Yes, every frame of video matters. But every frame of video needs a reason to be there, too. Making people go “Ugh!”, or even “Hubba Hubba!” just because we can, is wrong.

With any difficult call, it’s important for writers to share their concerns, immediately, with colleagues and superiors, not only to get everyone on board, and not only to protect oneself, but to continue the critical conversation that, over the years, helps us define who we are, and why we spend our days banging at the word processor.

Thank you, Ms. Reno, for reminding us.

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