Pubdate: Wed, 05 Sep 2001
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2001, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://www.fyitoronto.com/torsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Marianne Meed Ward

HEROES AND/OR VILLAINS?

There You Go Again, Folks, Shooting The Messenger

It always surprises me when I see the "shoot the messenger" reaction 
to bad news. It shouldn't, I know. After 12 years in the news 
business, I've taken my share of bullets (so to speak).

But there I was, feeling shocked (shocked!) that readers were 
incensed with the Toronto Sun and other newspapers for revealing that 
Air Transat pilot Robert Piche spent nearly two years in U.S. jails 
for drug trafficking in the 1980s. Apparently, his Piper Aztec 
turboprop plane was found containing 53 bales of pot (not for 
medicinal purposes, I presume).

You'll know Piche better as the guy who safely landed a plane 
carrying 304 people after the engines cut out over the Atlantic 
Ocean. For that, Piche was dubbed a hero - and rightly so. By all 
accounts, the landing was no easy task. But he succeeded. So on Aug. 
25, instead of reading about another Swissair-type disaster, we read 
of Piche's heroism.

And less than a week later, we read of his less heroic earlier flying 
exploits, the aforementioned non-medicinal marijuana running. But 
instead of discussing the complexities of everyday heroes who have 
colourful pasts, as distinct from fictional heroes who don't, we end 
up discussing, in the words of an Air Transat spokesperson, whether 
"ethics should have led the media to maybe be more sober" about 
Piche's past.

Ah, yes, media ethics: a favorite thing-that-doesn't-exist that we 
love to criticize. (Second only to God; ever notice how many people 
say they don't believe in God while railing about God's inefficiency 
and ineptitude? But I digress.) In this case, did media ethics call 
for burying the drug story?

Defining the Role

No. You'd expect a journalist to say that, right? Okay, you do the 
logic. How you answer depends on what you define as the role of the 
media. Is our role to make people feel good - about their world, 
their purchases, their jobs, their elected representatives or the 
heroes they encounter? If yes, then simply log onto PR Is Us, or its 
real-life equivalent. What you want is a steady diet of press 
releases - those things designed to pump you up about whatever 
they're promoting.

News is a different thing. And the job of the news media is, among 
other things, to tell the truth. That's not truth with a capital "T," 
as if there was one all-purpose interpretation of every event or 
issue, but rather lower case truth, as in "this is what we know to be 
accurate at this moment in time."

And what we know to be accurate as of a few days ago is that Robert 
Piche is both a convicted drug runner and a hero who saved 304 
people. Does one cancel out the other? That bit of truth is for 
readers to decide - the media is just the messenger of the details.

And decide they did. Seemingly without variation, people are 
defending Piche. What's done is done, he did his time, he's a hero 
today, seems to be the prevailing sentiment. True enough, but heroism 
today doesn't erase a criminal past, nor does a criminal past predict 
a criminal future. People are more complex than that.

And the reaction to stories like this shows me we're learning that 
lesson (which is one more reason to tell these stories in the first 
place). At least people aren't attempting to devalue Piche's heroism 
because of a mistake nearly 20 years ago.

And that proves we've matured beyond the Hollywood movie Hero - you 
know, the one where a crusty con-man played by Dustin Hoffman rescues 
people from a burning aircraft that lands on his car, but someone 
else takes the credit and reward. The other guy turns out to be a 
much nicer hero - he gives some reward money to charity, visits sick 
kids, makes motivational speeches. So in the end everyone agrees to 
keep up the charade, assuming the public would prefer the nicer hero.

The support for Piche proves we don't need the charade. You're a 
hero, Robert. And a convicted, later pardoned, drug runner. Both. Not 
either or. And there's nothing unethical about telling both stories.
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MAP posted-by: Josh