To wonder why so many journalists are crawling all over Haiti and yet aid can't get through?

[Rhubarb]

They said the airport is clogged up with traffic, I fecking hope they aren't letting journalists through in favour of bloody aid.

There were lads from the Lancashire Fire Service there last night, they couldn't land at the airport because of airport traffic, then they tried again and got turned back again. Yet all these journos are there, filming all over the place.

Someone tell me why that is!

Bloody hell hula. Never realised the air traffic control situation was practically non existent, that is really, truly awful

Rhubarb - if you were a journalist and tried to privately charter a plane to land in Haiti right now, you'd likely be told to eff right off and in practical terms, it would cost A FORTUNE and I mean, A FORTUNE.

Why would US Military agree to let a private jet in when they can hardly get in the aid that they need?

It just doesn't work like that.

YAB a little U. You are probably feeling angry and helpless and looking for someone to blame. Actually the press coverage is what is making people donate. Have just watched a heart wrenching story on CNN about a woman whose 12-year-old boy is still missing. He was in a school which collapsed. They can still hear the voices of children crying out for help.

There are obviously problems getting the aid there but this is a country which was already a mess BEFORE the earthquake.

Yes it was a mess. But I think you underestimate human kindness. We don't need to be shown graphic images of human suffering to donate. Many people are only too aware of what has happened. If they haven't donated by now then they never will.

Hearing stories about children crying out for help only serves to upset my children and to give me sleepless nights.

Ditto a lot of other people.

And no-one has managed to convince me that journalists going out there on such a huge scale will NOT interfere with the international aid trying to get through.

Gosh I am so sorry people are having sleepless nights over this.

The woman who is still waiting to see her son alive is probably not going to get much sleep tonight either.

Sorry but that isn't a reason to have no media coverage. Some of your other points are fair enough, but not that one.

Media's fast and furious rush to Haiti

I think YABU - Without journalists the rest of the world would have no idea what was going on there and wouldnt be donating.

What infrastructure they had has been obliterated. The aid effort needs to be co-ordinated and will inevitably take a bit of time to set up. By organising it properly hopefully they will save more lives in the long run.

BTW - people can donate here

It is a valid enough point because I think there comes a point when you are just soaking up human suffering. When cameras are filming these shocked people without gaining permission.

I would have sleepless nights without having to hear that kind of testimony.

And what time was that on the TV? Before 9pm?

There is no way I am saying that because some people are sensitive the media should not be there. I am saying that there is a line that they are crossing with their explicit coverage that is too much in peoples faces. I don't want my children to see other children in so much pain - is that insensitive of me? I wouldn't want my children to be filmed like that either.

Look I do understand what you are trying to say. When my dd1 was three I had to shield her from the news that a massive bomb had gone off in a hotel where we often visited, to feed the fish and buy apricots. A huge number of people we would have seen every time we went there were killed. It caused us to have to leave that country and move home.The tv coverage was continuous, it was all anyone talked about. Luckly for us, she was just slightly too young to work out what was going on. But some of my friends' children were pretty traumitised.

But this stuff happens in the world and sometimes I think children do need to know about it.

The best thing you can do is turn off the tv, but if your children (I don't know how old they are) ask you about it I think you need to be as honest as possible. They will grow up better people if they realise that the life they live is a privilidged one.

Sorry that is off topic a bit.

I heard it was because the run way wasnt long enough for the aid planes to land.

You are right though, so many journos there. THough they do need to get teh graphic pictures to make people sit up and donate.

but Rhubarb that's a totally different argument.

It seems to me like your understandable feelings about the devastation are colouring your views about whether journalists should be there.

Ok - you don't like the very graphic and distressing images. Fair enough - that's another discussion - but it's got nothing to do with your original claim that journalists were clogging up the airport and were preventing aid from getting through.

I do think that some of the coverage has been very in yer face - but no worse than coverage of (say) famine areas, I bet they don't ask every starving child whether it's ok to film. And no worse in many ways than the July 7 bombing footage when there were many pictures of shellshocked, bloodstained, wounded people newly emerged from the underground and still being treated.

Yes, there's a debate to be had about sensitive filming and how far the press are entitled to go in covering a story, vs how far the public are entitled to be shielded from the realities on the ground.

But that's a separate question. And claiming that people would donate without the media coverage is - sorry - completely wrong. If there were truly no correlation between media coverage and donations then why would charities spend a fortune on press liaisons and direct advertising?

theyoungvisitor - the way they portray disasters is a bit off topic yes.

But I do think they are going over the top atm, esp the journos from America.

But I stand by my comments that Haiti is now in danger of being over-run by journalists all jostling to film the same things. There was a huge scramble to get them over there as soon as the earthquake struck.

I feel like a voyeur when I watch it on TV, which is why I don't now. I'll do all I can to help, but I don't want to rubber-neck. And I don't want to encourage more journos to go over there. They're practically falling over each other now.

I think Rhubarb has a point. A friend of mine went out with the Red Cross after the Tsunami. When she got back she was fuming about TV coverage/journalists. There were lots of stories about how ineffective the aid agencies were with lots of arial shots showing devastated parts of the country with no aid. She simply couldn't get there, no transport, she couldn't get access to the planes the journalists could etc. She was supposed to be assessing the disaster to determine what was needed and she couldn't get around the country yet journalists seemed to have no problems. She was permanently running several days behind the journalists.

By the time she got there people were expecting her to do something - after all foreigners (i.e. journalists) had been there for some time before she got there. She was there to assess only and this obviously made her job even harder than it should have been. She had people swarm her wherever she went and had to deal with their anger and sense of frustration too.

"They're practically falling over each other now."

What a horrible thing to say. As coolbeans says, journalists are human beings. Covering stories like Haiti is not easy. But they do so to the best of their ability because they believe in what they do. Many of those in Haiti at the moment will have nightmares afterwards.

You've been told they go with the aid agencies, not in competition with them. You've been told they can get places aid trucks can't by virtue of being one person, or two, rather than a truck / team. It's been pointed out to you that media coverage increases donations. You've also been told they're getting there over land, rather than by air. But you're ignoring all these things because you'd rather think of journalists as subhuman graspers, "crawling" (your words) over the story, and enjoying (your implication) something this horrifying.

So you don't watch it on TV. That doesn't give you any sort of moral high ground. In fact, it means if the situation worsens, you will be unaware of it.

Most journalists (this one included) think that coverage of disasters like this one is the moral thing to do.

Some of you might be interested in this - livestream of an online Q+A session with NGOs operating in Haiti, started a few minutes ago - www.livestream.com/voiceproject

Saying that aid delivery for next 36-48 hours will continue to be difficult because airport is shut.

They do NOT all go with aid agencies, many go separately. They DO travel in trucks, I've seen that much on TV.

Sorry but I think they are overdoing it now. This society has become too much of a voyeuristic society. I'm talking globally too.

There is no need for so many journalists to be out there. Think of how many news channels we have in this country - Sky, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel Five, just off the top of my head. Then there is the radio and newspapers. This is just the UK. How many news channels does America have? Each news channel has it's own reporter out there, some have several. Imagine all those people in Haiti trying to get their story.

I never said they shouldn't be there, just that there are too many and that cannot be good for the aid efforts.

I don't care if you think it's a horrible thing to say, it's an observation and I know I'm not the only one to make such an observation.

Rhubarb - If you look here and listen to the programme from 30/08/09 you can get some insight (with a historical perspective) on the differnce journalism can make and how a journalist may feel about covering this sort of story. You will also hear what the aid workers felt then and feel now.

What's going on in Haiti is hell - for everybody involved including the journalists. It's their job to tell an honest story and it will make a difference. I think your concerns are misplaced and your vitriol against journalists in general is misguided.

I see I did a sterling job of slaughtering that thread!