Just as America was trying to push those gnarly tar balls out of its collective consciousness, yet another tragedy has struck the Gulf Coast, Okay so maybe it's not a tragedy, but it IS disturbing. I'm talking about the great Lens Schism of Twenty Ten. Sure, details are sketchier than an intern with genital warts, but as this recently unearthed snapshot proves, something is happening along our mottled shore. Theories abound as to exactly why, but it's clear from this photo (and a sharp drop in area fast food sales) that certain members of the media are turning on each other. Perhaps predictably, it's breaking down along long-held grudge lines. Example:
In coastal Alabama, a vacationing family reported watching two newspaper employees chase a TV news cameraman through a Waffle House parking lot. Witnesses aren't sure what started it, but they say the two ink stained wretches were trying to garrote the news shooter with the lanyard from his own press-pass. Actual bloodshed was avoided when the portly trio became overly winded and retreated to neutral sides of the breakfast bar .Some might call it natural selection. Others say it's survival of the fittest. Fans of the original Highlander flick can only think of it as The Quickening. Whatever you name it, one question remains: WHY? Did the recent oil spill upset the natural order of things? Was the brief uptick in freelance opportunities enough to push these fragile egos into apoplexy? Or is the widespread bouts of rage between newspaper photogepahers and their moving picture counterparts somehow connected to all that Kool-Aid that BP was pushin'? Hard to say, but until the matter is resolved no crime tape is safe. Experts worry it could lead to widespread discord, should the unadulterated rage spread to people the public actually cares about. At this printing, the U.S. Government is denying any involvement, but reports of black helicopters and and a roving band of mysterious census workes are causing worry all along the Gulf Coast...
Up the road in Thibodaux, a pair of hapless newlyweds left a still photog and a videographer arguing in a fancy reception hall. Party-goers reported hearing girlish screams and the clang of foreign made metal. When the young couple returned, all they found was a steaming pile of entrails, cargo pants and dirt-weed.
A postal carrier in Mississippi was slightly injured when she tried to break up a scuffle between a local print photographer and a network sound-man. No one's sure what started it, but eyewitnesses say the out of towner got the better of his older foe by wrapping his boom pole around the man's throat. It may have ended there had a group of passing fireman notpummelled the two men into submission with their wet, musty turn-out gear.
Personally, I blame Anderson Cooper.
As one who craves indelible images, I can tell you yesterday slaked my thirst in a most unsettling way. It began with a smoldering home; a modest trailer soaked in cinders and warped by lethal heat. It caught us by surprise. Sure, Sheeka and I knew we were headed to a fatal fire, but between the GPS and the dashboard chatter, we almost forgot why we were racing to Boonville. That changed the moment we arrived, for the family members pouring out of the gutted mobile home 
Approaching a loved one as they mourn is indelicate, at best. Handled wrong, it can be horrific - but with enough empathy and tact this grim business can be settled quickly, with neither survivor or spy losing too much of their soul. I know it sounds harsh, but the gentle inquisition of a victim's friends and family is as much a part of newscasts as the heavily edited press conference. I didn't exactly blaze a path up the widow's porch; that ground was covered long before I took up the lens. But in twenty years of television, I've had to knock on more mournful doors than I try to remember. But when you've zoomed in on as many tears as I have, those memories stick with you whether you want them too or not. So I follow my own prime directive: Do No Harm. It's a rule we followed far more often then the enemies of the Fourth Estate would have you believe, but since when do self-appointed experts really know much anyway?
Not very often, I've found - which is why I ignore convention avoid bad karma. You want me to bum-rush a funeral and demand some answers? Not gonna happen. You need to me to appear on the edge of some stranger's heartbreak, maybe ask for a picture or two? Yeah, I can do that. I've done it reluctantly a hundred times and while it's never easy, it's possible to pull off without causing too much collateral damage. Take yesterday. When Sheeka and I got out of the car, the sorrow was as thick as the humidity. Youngsters wept as they pulled what they could out of the trailer's remains. One boy in particular stalked back and forth with a pistol jammed in his waistband. Sheeka and I exchanged looks but little more. Instead, she approached the first adult she could find and quietly introduced herself. I meanwhile hung back and shot video from the safety of my sticks. 
That seemed to be all the space the family needed, for they went about their grim tasks without demanding I ground my lens. Had they done so, I would have complied, for though it may irk some of my perceived superiors, I'm not going to do anything with a camera that'll make me stare at the ceiling all night. My less than heroic moments tend to play there on a loop. So I keep my karma clean, knowing no TV news story is worth me enhancing someone's misery. Besides, more often than not, the people WANT to talk. I can't explain it, I don't know what it says about our society. All I can tell you is that most folk want to brag on their beloved, effect whatever message might be brewing and maybe even set the record straight. I can help them do that and more times than not that tearful interview is followed by a thank you and even the occasional hug.