By: Wayne Litke

Media personnel are often labeled insensitive because their job includes reporting on disasters, accidents and scenes where injuries and fatalities occur. In cities, reporters often converge at a tragedy en mass and that action gives them the reputation of being vultures. As with every other business, news reporting is competitive and that can sometimes lead to insensitive actions by journalists and correspondents.
However, I have been reminded several times in the last couple of months that insensitive actions are not limited to the world of news gathering. Think about it. When was the last time you received poor service or were subject to rude behaviour by someone in the customer service business? When did another driver endanger your life?
Reporters are likened to vultures because they must appear at tragic events and then deal with people who are emotionally injured, people who are grief-stricken and are very sensitive, and also vulnerable. Therefore, true professionals use the utmost sensitivity when facts must be obtained regarding a fatality or tragic event. What makes such situations more difficult is the fact that some of the people involved want to tell their story while others want to deal with the trauma in solitude. Unfortunately, there is usually no way of knowing how to handle such situations without appearing calloused and asking if the individuals close to the event care to speak about it.
I was dwelling on this subject last month while thinking about a plan to construct a mosque near the site of the 9-11 terrorist attack that brought down the World Trade Centre. If you ask me, such action is a test of moral character. Firstly, building a mosque – a place of worship – anywhere in the United States of America is a constitutional right afforded U.S. citizens. However, building such a facility on American soil near the site where Muslims committed the worst terrorism act in U.S. history is an open invitation for retaliatory action. Constructing a mosque near ground zero may be legally correct, but it does not make such action morally acceptable and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
As freedom-loving individuals, people should respect other’s constitutional right to erect a mosque anywhere provided the structure meets the building code and bylaw requirements. However, if the shoe was on the other foot in less democratic countries, I don’t think supreme leaders such as the ayatollah would be as understanding. In fact, there are many countries in the world where attempts to construct a church will result in attacks and likely death. In such countries, Christians meet privately in homes and do everything to stay out of the public’s eye. As for our country of Canada, it was inspiring to hear a voice of reason speak out when a spokesman for the Canadian Muslim Congress spoke against the idea of building a mosque near the site where the twin towers once stood.
Common sense should prevail, but unfortunately it’s the radicals who pursue their goals at all cost. In a democracy it is typically the individuals and organizations with hidden or illegal agendas that use or stretch the law for their own purposes. I was reminded of that after learning a stalker had been banished from Regina last week after harassing a woman for 35 years!
Thirty-five years of stalking, that’s 3 1/2 decades and it is hard to imagine how such abuse has been allowed to continue that long. The 63-year-old stalker apparently told the judge presiding over his case that banishment would be a hardship since he is on social assistance, is unemployed and will have a greater chance of finding employment if he is allowed to stay in the city. The judge did not buy Ken Klein’s story and kicked him out of the city for a year. He was given a one-year prohibition, it’s not much when compared to the 35 years that he stalked his victim.
I suspect not many readers have had a stalker pursue them, but my family was subject to such harassment when I was a teen and it was a very difficult time for us. Harassment typically involves surveillance by the stalker when he walks or drives by (it’s totally legal), anonymous and untraceable phone calls, and occasional confrontations that are cleverly conducted so they cannot be recorded or substantiated by a witness. The inability to enforce laws allows such harassment to continue and it is a price some individuals pay so Canadians and Americans do not live in a totalitarian state.
Being sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others is not a law, but more importantly, it is a moral obligation we all share.