LR Resident: Little Rock TV News Crews Insensitive

This letter can be found in today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Letters section:

"Television news crews seem to be a bunch of loutish, rude, insensitive creeps who feel that they can barge in with cameras and lights wherever they want. That’s about the only nice way to describe what they did recently at a West Little Rock home.

A sad, defenseless young girl, already having to cope with an invasion of screaming police officers, [reportedly] cowered in an upstairs closet, probably thinking her life was about to come to a violent end to the accompaniment of probing reporters with lights, cameras and microphones.

Instead of showing some sensitivity and compassion, the TV crews showed up with their marked vehicles and spotlighted the house, even providing a map of how to get there so that the morbidly curious could hop in the car and drive by, thus adding more misery for the girl and her family. What can possibly be gained by the television outlets as they continue to pile on more misery to this family? KTHV, Channel 11 seems to be the worst offender, but the other two mainstream stations have been just as egregious with their continued repetitions of the story.

The Democrat-Gazette gave the story discreet coverage without using abusive headlines, much to the paper’s credit. The television stations deserve nothing but scorn. They should be ashamed of themselves. This girl and her family deserve compassion and empathy as the details emerge."