Family can avoid media exploitation
I could sense them salivating, those television and cable news producers, those talk-show scouts, sitting in their offices in New York City and Los Angeles, watching the Shasta Groene story unfold.
They spied Steve Groene’s mullet beneath his baseball cap as he told Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera about his reunion with daughter Shasta. They heard Amber Deahn, the waitress at Denny’s in Coeur d’Alene, say she makes $3 an hour but rescuing Shasta Groene was priceless.
Perhaps these TV types sniffed easy targets for exploitation – seemingly unsophisticated folks living in Idaho, for Pete’s sake.
The national TV media are committing their clichés upon us day after day now. This will last until the media move on to the next tragic story, the next Laci Peterson, the next Natalee Holloway, the next Shasta Groene.
We have become so accustomed to 24-hour cable news, talk shows and reality shows, that it seems impossible that people could refuse to trade their saddest stories for 15 minutes of fame. It seems impossible that there could be a different way to respond to exploitative media demands. But there is.
In this different way, Steve Groene would not talk to the media. He would not believe the media smoothies who assure him that telling his story will help him heal. It won’t. He would not believe the myth that telling his story will help save other little girls and boys. It won’t.
He would not repeat the missteps walked by the parents of Elizabeth Smart. When Elizabeth surfaced nine months after her abduction by a crazy man, the Smarts insisted to the world that their daughter was doing just fine, thank you. They released photos of Elizabeth playing her harp. They allowed Oprah to ask inane questions. She was recently listed by People magazine as one of its “50 Most Beautiful People of 2005.”
When I saw the photo of Shasta with her father Tuesday morning, it was eerily reminiscent of the photo released right after Elizabeth was reunited with her parents. The faces of both girls seemed puffy. Both looked older than they did before their abductions. Though both were smiling, their eyes held a hurt that most of the rest of us cannot imagine. This hurt is nobody’s business.
In this different way, the extended Groene family would say no to invitations to appear on talk shows, no matter how exciting it sounds to have an all-expenses-paid trip to New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. They would stay home and attend to the needs of a family shredded by tragedy.
They would tell their stories to the professionals who can truly help them cope, professionals who will never spill the secrets in tell-all interviews, because to do so would violate their code of ethics.
In this different way, the folks who worked together at Denny’s to rescue Shasta would realize that the media do not do well with multiple heroes. Too complicated. So a pretty waitress making $3 an hour, who comforted Shasta as police arrested her alleged abductor, will, of course, get the most attention. This reality wouldn’t take away from the team effort.
The Denny’s heroes – customers and employees – would take pride in the fact that they saved a child’s life.
They would share rather than argue over the reward money – a form of blood money, if you think about it – because their actions were not done for financial gain.
And they know that if they were to fight, the media would pounce on that story right away, and, surprisingly, have no difficulty naming the multiple heroes battling one another.
In this different way, my column space would be blank today. The white space would reflect the inadequacy now of all media reports, including this one, that try to make sense of this tragedy. The white space would honor the memory of brothers Dylan and Slade.
The white space would also honor the courage of those helping Shasta and her family, not for personal gain or notoriety, but because it is the noble, and the best, thing they can do right now.