Can Anybody Find News Here?In Hyannis Port, nobody could. But ‘news’ was delivered, anyway.Journalist’s TradeBy Melissa LudtkeWhen I was a child, PresidentKennedy and his family livednearby. In the summer, Icould always tell it was Friday night bythe sound and sight of a fire engineroaring down the street to prepare forthe President’s arrival. I knew that in afew minutes the helicopter carryinghim would touch down on the lawnoutside his parent’s house. Many times,even if my dinner was on the table, I’dhead out the door and run down thestreet so I could be there when hearrived.Sometimes the President would tossa football to children gathered behindthe short white picket fence that markedthe closest spot from which we wereallowed to watch. Or as he came up theprivate road he’d be driving a golf cartloaded with kids from his extendedfamily and we’d run alongside as theywent to the candy store a block away.I can remember that as a child thesemoments seemed special, even onthose occasions when all we did waswatch his helicopter touch down.This past July, when that President’sson, along with his wife and sister-inlaw,died on their way to this destination,this short white picket fence againbecame the boundary for those whowanted to witness what was happeningat the other end of this small privateroad.This time, however, those who cameto bear witness arrived not on bicyclesor foot. These witnesses arrived in hugetrucks displaying enormous satellitedishes and towering antennas. Out ofthe trucks came portable video cameraswith powerful telephoto lenses,and big fat microphones, and miles ofcolored wires that followed the humanoccupants like snakes as they foundtheir way to a spot at the side of theshort white picket fence.In all, about 50 of these giant trucksHuge TV trucks parked near the Hyannis Port pier to transmit words and images to theworld. Photo by Melissa Ludtke.set up business on the narrow streetsof this village, their engines hummingloudly and their lights blaring brightlyas days kept turning into nights. Theirsize made it difficult for the peoplewho lived in this village to pass by. Andalong the short white picket fence,hundreds of people with badges danglingfrom around their necks to signifymembership in the community ofjournalists kept 24-hour-a-day vigils asthey waited for something to happen atthe other end of this road.On Sunday afternoon, the day afterthe plane disappeared, my usual midafternoonwalk to the pier unearthedanother cluster of cameras, lights andmicrophones. Dug in on the beach—asclose as it was possible for them to beto this private pier—were people holdingvideo cameras jockeying for spotswith photographers dangling multiplecameras, some with lenses that musthave been as long as my arm. As Iwalked back from the end of the pier,I could not avoid staring into this sea ofcameras and imagining what it mustfeel like when they are raised in unisonand their loud clicking motor drivesswitched on as photographers strainedto get “the picture.”It didn’t take long for me to see theresults of this pier-side vigil. Back in myliving room, on the TV, was video ofseveral members of the Kennedy familywalking up the pier, their headsdown, eyes averted from the cameras,returning from a sail. The next daynewspapers had photos from the walk.I am not sure what any of this told anyof us except perhaps that these familymembers were sad.And so it went in Hyannis Port fornearly a week while news directors andeditors back home decided there wouldbe news emanating from this road. Butwhat “news” would their on-site reportersfind here when family mem-<strong>Nieman</strong> Reports / Fall 1999 49
Journalist’s Tradebers made it abundantly clearthat grieving would be done inprivate? From early on, it shouldhave been apparent that therewould be no personal testimonialsrecorded near this shortwhite picket fence. And whenword did come from the family,the statement was widelycirculated by SenatorKennedy’s office. If there wasnews to be had about the rescue-turned-recoveryoperation,then that information was goingto surface about 20 milesaway, where the National TransportationSafety Board andCoast Guard held briefings toexplain what their search wasrevealing.But still the cameras, producersand revolving cast ofon-air “talent” remained nextto the short white picket fence,now crowded behind policebarricades on a public streetthat their presence made impassable.Network news “stars”came and went so they, too,could use, as a backdrop fortheir words, this silent roadwhere Kennedy homes nowhad window shades drawnagainst spying eyes of telephoto lenses.Impressive as this technology mightbe that can transport an audience directlyto a scene such as this, if whatviewers take away are impressions fromreporters who have no news to impart,then is having this technology reasonenough to use it and pretend its productis news? Or are pictures of Kennedyhomes, and occasionally their occupantscoming and going in cars orgathering for a private mass under atent in their yard, enough in this era ofcelebrity journalism to qualify as anemerging definition of “news”? Or isthe unquestioned commercial successof instantaneous voyeurism enough toconvince reporters that “the people’sright to know” (or more accuratelythese days, “the people’s right to see”)always trumps “the individual’s rightto privacy”?In her book, “The Right to Privacy,”(co-authored with Ellen Alderman)50 <strong>Nieman</strong> Reports / Fall 1999Members of the press set up camp next to the short whitepicket fence. Photo by Melissa Ludtke.Caroline Kennedy helps us to at leastunderstand what it is that we, as journalists,pit our Constitutional right tofree speech against when stories suchas this one surface. In her book shewrites about a <strong>Harvard</strong> Law Reviewarticle, written by Louis D. Brandeisand Samuel D. Warren. It put forth arevolutionary legal concept, the originsof which were prompted byWarren’s outrage when details from afamily wedding appeared in the gossipcolumns. The arguments these two menset forth, Kennedy informs us, are creditedwith creating “the right to privacy,”a legal right that can be used instate courts but should never be confusedwith any Constitutional right.Warren and Brandeis defined their newlegal term as “the right to be let alone.”Prophetically, what these two menworried about in this article as the 19thCentury was ending has come to passduring the 20th. Society, they warned,would become more complexand technology more intrusiveand, as these two things occurred,the need to protect individualprivacy would becomeeven more urgent.Certainly this is so. We feel itin every aspect of our lives. Weare concerned when we hearabout someone’s financial andmedical records landing in unscrupuloushands. Or when welearn that private messages sentelectronically have been readby a strange set of eyes. Orwhen someone steals from uswords spoken on a telephone.These circumstances alert us tothe fact that something wemight not have realized was soprecious might be in the processof being taken away.Maintaining what is personalas private is becoming one ofthe huge challenges each of usfaces as technological advancesthreaten to obliterate walls thatonce seemed secure around us.And this challenge exists as wellfor those of us whose job it is torecord the events of our timeand convey images and newsabout them back to viewers andreaders. Part of having the freedomswe do—those rights that the press inthis country should and do possess—means that professional judgmentshould be applied so that we demonstratewisdom and responsibility inprotecting the precious from what can,too quickly, turn pernicious.Writing in <strong>Nieman</strong> Reports in 1948,the First Amendment scholar ZechariahChafee said, “The press is a sort of wildanimal in our midst—restless, gigantic,always seeking new ways to use itsstrength.” Responding to those wordsnearly 50 years later, Caroline Kennedywrites, “When the [press] uses itsstrength to uncover government corruptionor lay bare a public lie, it is thecountry’s watchdog. But when the animalroams into our cherished privatesphere, it seems to turn dangerous andpredatory. Then we, Americans, turnon the press. We want a free press, wesay, but not that free.”