A panel of journalists and School of Journalism faculty members will discuss media coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in a symposium Friday.
“It’s been a complicated media event,” said Bonnie Bucqueroux, Victims and the Media programs coordinator.
“We’re hoping to hear many people’s thoughts on what they saw and how they feel event is being handled.”
The event will be held from 1:30-3 p.m. Friday in room 145 Communication Arts and Sciences Building.
The purpose of the symposium is to help journalists understand how to work with victims of disaster without victimizing them by letting the public give feedback on how well they thought the media covered the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The event is free and open to the public.
The symposium’s panel of guests includes print and broadcast journalists Phillip Hendrix and Robert Jackson. Hendrix is the assistant news director for WJRT, Flint, an ABC affiliate, and Jackson is the assistant news editor for the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus.
Don Gonyea, White House correspondent for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., will be there via telephone. Gonyea was in Washington during the attacks.
Panelists from MSU include host Bucqueroux, Miki Kato, L.A. Dickerson and Kim Piper-Aiken.
Stephen Lacy, director of the School of Journalism, said the symposium will bring people with different perspectives together to discuss media coverage of Sept. 11, which might lead to disagreements. He hopes the audience learns that media organizations are not all the same.
“There are some good journalists,” Lacy said. “And there are some journalists who take shortcuts.”
But some journalists need to learn how to cover graphic events without injuring victims and still educating the public, he said.
“The terrible thing about becoming a victim of crime or disaster is that you don’t have control on what happened,” he said. “When there’s a mic put in your face, someone else is taking power from you.”
Journalists “need to allow victims to take control over telling their own story,” he said.
Last year, a similar symposium was held after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but Bucqueroux said the event would have been more beneficial if it were held later.
“I thought it was so soon that most of us were still in shock,” she said.
About 50 people attended last year’s event, and Bucqueroux said she wants more to attend this year.
“This is for everybody,” Bucqueroux said.
She said she wants the symposium to be interactive with the audience.
“I think the speakers are learning a lot.”
Journalism sophomore Ayanna Wheeler said last year’s media coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was good and she would probably attend the symposium.
“Some of the media blew it up, though,” she said. “(But) they covered it to the best of their ability.”
