Following the example of CNN's star medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, almost all major US television networks have now deployed doctor-reporters to cover the catastrophic human tragedy that has hit Haiti.
For the first time, all major news networks have sent doctor-reporters to the scene of a natural disaster, producing a dramatic kind of participatory journalism, The Washington Post said today.
"The twin roles -- doctor and journalist -- might be a reflection of the Gupta Effect, after CNN's dashing medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta," it said.
Gupta, a neurosurgeon who was the first medical correspondent to reach Haiti, helped in providing treatment to the quake-hit people and even conducted a brain surgey on a young girl.
Following him, Jennifer Ashton, the medical correspondent of CBS News and a doctor, assisted with the treatment of a teenage girl whose arm had been amputated.
NBC's Nancy Snyderman, a surgeon, has also spent days splinting broken bones, while ABC's Richard Besser, a doctor formerly affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, helped a woman deliver a premature baby, the daily said.
Gupta has helped save several lives, successfully operating upon badly injured people during his latest reporting assignment for the CNN in Haiti.
Gupta, who last year turned down appointment as surgeon general by President Barack Obama, had played this twin role while covering several natural disasters in the past, be it Iraq or Afghanistan.
Gupta treated a 15-day-old baby with a head laceration, and later operated on a 12-year-old girl who had been taken aboard an American aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, by helicopter.
"I don't think our intention is to ever make the story about myself," Gupta was quoted as saying by The Los Angeles Times.
"I think people innately understand that tremendous medical help is needed down here, and if you can help, you should help," he said.
The newspaper said reporters usually shy away from direct involvement to avoid affecting the outcome of the news and to maintain the distance necessary to report accurately and fairly.
"When I see a situation where there's something I could do to help somebody, I'm going to do that," Besser told The Los Angeles Times.
NBC's Snyderman said as a doctor, her moral responsibility was to help people and she has to maintain the delicate balance of doing it along with her journalistic duty of telling stories.
Some media ethicists say medical correspondents should consider foregoing their journalistic roles if they're going to participate in the relief effort.
"I think it's very hard for an individual who is professionally and emotionally engaged in saving lives to be able to simultaneously step back from the medical work and practice independent journalistic truth-telling," said Bob Steele, journalism values scholar at the Poynter Institute and journalism professor at DePauw University.
Paul Friedman, executive vice president for CBS News, told LA Times that he normally would agree that a reporter should not wear two hats on a story, "but in this case, I can't conceive of a conflict we couldn't figure out and remedy".
President of CNN/US, Jon Klein told the newspaper the network is telling a compelling part of the story in Haiti by showcasing Gupta's medical work there.
"His mission is to explain the urgency of the medical situation to the world," Klein said.
"In addition to the hands-on care he's providing, Sanjay is providing a unique service most doctors couldn't," he said.
