I can recall an interview I saw on CNN a while back with a reporter, Chris Gunness, covering the crises in Palestine. Apparently, he was being asked about a previous on-air interview in which he broke down crying. The video of him sobbing has made its rounds on various news networks and some had criticized the reporter. In the interview, the CNN respondent mentioned that some questioned his ability to remain neutral in such cases, and even questioned his professionalism.
What I found disturbing about the audacity of such questions, was the subliminal inference that one should remain neutral, objective, and numb to all that one experiences in such horrible circumstances. Why and when did that become a goal for anyone experiencing warfare, genocide, and large-scale natural disasters? A man experiences genocide and blatant homicide to Palestinian families and has the nerve to actually have basic human feelings and people insinuate it's unprofessional. And we wonder why there are so many dealing with PTSD (and suicide) who have yet to seek professional help?
It came to mind while reading The Big Truck That Went By. As a reporter, Katz was asked, if not demanded by his job, to do certain tasks and, edged on by the future of his career, to get certain shots and stories that are known to make a nice cushion for photographers if they're in the right place at the right time with their expensive cameras. At times, I felt that Katz could be categorized with those photographers, journalists, and reporters who would take a picture of a dying person instead of offering aid. At other times, I felt that he was one of the few that would offer a hand when and if he saw someone was in need. I tend to believe that the overwhelming majority of reporters, photographers, and journalists are of the former, although the reality is probably that they are all a little bit of both.
When Katz detailed how he looked in rubble, and then later upon examining his film saw that a man was reaching out to him beyond the dust clouds...I felt a bit of anger. What if he were more concerned with saving people than taking a photo, could that man have been saved? I'd like to think so. Not to mention the instances in which he told Evens to stick to a particular work task when he hadn't even checked on his own family...and had to dig some out of the rubble with his bare hands (without Katz, who was somewhere trying to email pictures to his boss...).
That aside, I respect his story and the fact that he was one of the few to truly detail the ways in which foreign aid have been largely misguided, unorganized, and thus not aid at all. The fact that he went back after returning home and continued to live in the devastated areas and lived to write a book about it has to garner some level of respect. His research on the economic and political structures (or lack thereof) in Haiti, it's history, it's present, and the ways in which present situations keep Haiti stagnant are commendable as well as his understanding of the cholera outbreak.
I'm wondering though, if many of the aid efforts which in the end keep Haiti in the same state it always seems to have been in cost more money that helping build the infrastructure and securing a better and independent future for Haiti, why do nations keep doing it? Put simply, for example, if building a facility that cleaned the water in Port-au-Prince costs $10,000 and the bottled water from the US government had to buy (if even in bulk) costs $1 million, why do they continue with this process every natural disaster? Coming from a place where the dollar is god and everything else comes after making money and keeping money, why is it that this situation, which financially if more costly, and literally is not better than bettering the infrastructure option has yet to come to fruition? Is it because they countries like to keep up altruistic facades? I'm not grasping why such nonsense takes place.
On another note, i'm happy Katz included a bit about the history of Haiti and mentioned the fact that many of the Tainos had dealt with earthquakes, seeing as how they had been there for quite some time. I found it interesting that the Tainos used a particular type of wood that gave a little in earthquakes, as opposed to using rock or anything heavier. I find it disheartening when those steeped in modernity cannot and have not learned valuable lessons from those in indigenous societies. Here, we have proof that they used wooden structures that bend when tested, as opposed to crumble, yet how many are suggesting Haiti uses wooden structures? Although, then again, where is the infrastructure to even suggest and implement such. Furthermore, where are the trees to get the wood?
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