A Marine Confronted Me at an Airport 20 years Ago. I Just Learned that He Hasn't Forgotten It.
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A Marine at an airport confronted me about what the news chooses to cover, and what it ignores. Twenty years later, I still can't forget what happened that day.
In 2005, I was in Santa Maria, California, covering the Michael Jackson trial. It was a media circus. At the airport, I met a group of Marines, including John Bates, who had just returned from burying three of their fellow service members killed in Iraq. Bates didn't hold back about what he thought of the media's priorities.
Then something happened that none of us expected. An elderly man collapsed in the terminal. As people walked past, these Marines, including one on crutches from a gunshot wound, didn't hesitate. They ran to help. That moment, and the conversation that preceded it, forced me to confront the gap between what makes the news and what actually matters.
This is the story of that encounter, the segment that followed, and what it teaches us about our priorities 20 years later.
A Marine at an airport confronted me about what the news chooses to cover, and what it ignores. Twenty years later, I still can't forget what happened that day.
In 2005, I was in Santa Maria, California, covering the Michael Jackson trial. It was a media circus. At the airport, I met a group of Marines, including John Bates, who had just returned from burying three of their fellow service members killed in Iraq. Bates didn't hold back about what he thought of the media's priorities.
Then something happened that none of us expected. An elderly man collapsed in the terminal. As people walked past, these Marines, including one on crutches from a gunshot wound, didn't hesitate. They ran to help. That moment, and the conversation that preceded it, forced me to confront the gap between what makes the news and what actually matters.
This is the story of that encounter, the segment that followed, and what it teaches us about our priorities 20 years later.
