Dealing with a delicate situation

February 15th, 2008 at 04:22pm Tim Scordato

Early this morning, I watched the father of the NIU gunman on TV wave off a crowd of reporters saying, “Please leave me alone. This is a very hard time for me.” He declined any further comment about his son and told reporters he was a diabetic.

There is a very thin line reporters must walk when questioning victims and their families. And yes, I consider Stephen a victim. All too often, we become victims of our own doing. Anyways, I believe it is the job of the media to know when and what questions to ask. It must be very hard for Stephen’s father to speak to the media during this time. I’m sure he’s already been questioned by the police and FBI all morning.

This past summer, I was playing tennis with a photographer friend of mine. While we were playing, a huge butterfly landed in the middle of the court. He had at least a five inch wing span. My friend instinctively whipped out his camera and started taking pictures. The butterfly eventually started to fly away, but my friend hit him back to the ground with his tennis racket, so he could take more pictures of him. The butterfly slammed into the gound breaking one of his wings. It was at this point my friend realized the photo wasn’t worth tormenting this bug.

Sometimes, we just need to let these delicate creatures fly away until they are ready to have their photo taken again.

Entry Filed under: Tim Scordato