napocor tower story

one of the dilemmas when you're in tv industry - news gathering in this respect, aside from being the first to know and broadcast it exclusively, is also being able to get good and action-packed video; but what if there's a life at stake? what are we going to do then? that was exactly what abs cbn got for the retarded kid story who went up the napocor tower in san jose, del monte, bulacan. they were the first to know and broadcast it - rich video of the lens waiting for some action to happen, may it be the kid to jump from the tower or fall from there; but then a twist came, some drunk barangay councilor fired a gun pointing to the "pasaway kid" who thinks that the kid should be shot since the kid is an abnormal.

but what really bothered me while i was watching their segment for that, how did even one member of the news team to do something considering the brgy councilor even went to the news team to announce that he's going to shoot the kid, how come he was not prevented from doing so? how come it lasted that long that people around there were not able to devise a way of saving the kid? i can imagine how long the lenses of the cameraman soaked itself long enough taking a video of kid while sitting on the rails, dancing on the tower, etc. does this mean that the scope of social responsibility of media does not include giving utmost importance on individual's?

on one hand, the parent's responsibility also should not be taken for granted here, considering the kid is mentally-challenged; they're also to blame for letting the kid out of their sight when they should have been giving utmost attention to the kids' needs. however, we cannot deny the fact that the coverage was foul.