Wonderful story. I think you’re a bit too harsh on the local media for their portrayal of the event. Local news stations are not anywhere near as sophisticated as national networks. I thought they did a nice job of surprising Morgan Hill with her rescuers and at the end, highlighted her new focus on the Safe Haven options for pregnant women.
“Wonderful story. I think you’re a bit too harsh on the local media for their portrayal of the event. Local news stations are not anywhere near as sophisticated as national networks. I thought they did a nice job of surprising Morgan Hill with her rescuers and at the end, highlighted her new focus on the Safe Haven options for pregnant women.”
You won’t find me saying too many positive things about the media, but I agree. Both the girl and the guy who saved her wanted to meet each other again, and the TV station made that possible. Plus, as you say, the story creates publicity for the Safe Haven programs. Win, win... and win.
I understand where you’re coming from, but the “serious” news industry has deliberately been playing to people’s emotions more and more in recent decades, and we’re seeing the results of them using emotional manipulation as standard practice: that emotional manipulation replaces news, and the media openly justify advocating for secular humanist “causes” largely on the basis of emotions.
On this story, I read the article before viewing the video, and the article makes apparent that the news reporter was going to put herself in the story rather than keeping some distance (which was not long ago considered unethical).
I do believe Morgan Hill’s story and the cause of safe havens deserve attention, and that the t.v. station did its job properly in finding the construction worker and nurse who found her. It was even fine to put the reunion on camera (the story says Morgan’s mother paid for the construction worker and his wife to fly to meet them).
What’s troubling is putting the moment of reunion on camera as they did, to milk the emotion of it. In the reporter’s account of doing the story, she seems focused on Morgan producing tears for the camera - something that the TV news industry must know by now sells well. I did tear up myself as I read the story, but at that part of the story, which shows how the station was concerned with getting a product, I was troubled.