Irresponsible reporting

The dissemination of news has become a vicious contest.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
IDF medical team lands in Bulgaria to bring home wounded 370 (photo credit: IDF Spokesman)
IDF medical team lands in Bulgaria to bring home wounded 370
(photo credit: IDF Spokesman)
One of the curses of the digital age is the accelerated sense of urgency in spreading information without sufficient data.
This is what happened on July 18 when Israel Radio reported on an explosion in a tourist bus in Bulgaria.
The extent of the damage was unknown. The exact number of lives lost or the number of people hurt was also unknown. Whether they were all Israelis was also unknown. Regular broadcasts were disrupted over and over to bring so-called updates from various Israel radio news reporters – who really had little or nothing to add to the original news bulletin.
One can only imagine the panic that this caused among families who had relatives who had left on vacation for Bulgaria only a few hours earlier.
While it's possible that they made telephone contact with their relatives, it's also possible that the explosion had a negative impact on batteries in mobile phones. People were unable to contact their relatives and had no information other than the fast and furious repetitions on Reshet Bet. These reports must have had a traumatic effect on families listening in vain to hear something of substance.
It was totally irresponsible on the part of the radio news team to keep this up. Even news of the explosion without any further details should have been withheld until such time as information was available.
In the case of hospitalized victims of the explosion, relatives couldn't get to them till the next day anyway – even if seats were available on any of the delayed flights to Bulgaria.
If no information was released until the facts were known, a lot of unnecessary anxiety could have been avoided. Reshet Bet's behavior was tantamount to yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater.
After twenty minutes of broadcast, it was determined that three buses exploded resulting in three deaths and 20 injured. Beyond that, the radio had no details, or if it did it was not able to broadcast them. As it was, the figures were higher in the final analysis.
The agony of the relatives of the three busloads of passengers is simply unfathomable.
Yes, they could have and eventually did call the situation room at the Foreign Ministry. However, it was still too soon for the ministry to have details of the identities of the dead and injured.
In the good old days of the ground line telephone and the typewriter, reporters had more time to check their facts. Reporters didn't have to worry about how quickly they could get their stories online, thus, they were able to exercise greater responsibility towards the public.
The dissemination of news has become a contest somewhat like the OlympicGames – faster, higher, stronger. Heaven only knows how they will cover the next tragedy.
The writer was born in Australia and has lived in Israel since 1973.  She has been writing for The Jerusalem Post since 1977.