Haiti has been a petri dish of journalistic quandaries in the to-be-or-not-to-be-involved category. Especially for the TV doctors (via TVNewser):

Bob Steele, a journalism values scholar at the Poynter Institute, tells the LA Times’ Matea Gold, “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.”

“I may blur the rules of dispassionate journalism,” ABC News correspondent Dr.Richard Besser tells Gold, “but I think it would be impossible to be a true physician working as a journalist and not help when you can contribute.”

Which raises the question: should physicians be working as journalists?

You tell me.

TV Newser’s question (in a reader poll) was, “In general, how do you feel about the intervention by anchors and reporters in Haiti?”

The thoroughly unscientific results had 34% saying it crosses a journalistic line; 59% saying it’s appropriate considering the circumstances; and 7% unsure.

Media watchers are unsure where the line is now between covering the story and being part of it, as one observer told the Washington Post.

“I understand that [offering medical assistance] makes for dramatic scenes, and it does bring a human face to the whole story, but this has to be treated very carefully,” said Stephen J.A. Ward, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin’s journalism school. Ward says such “emotion-based” reporting has its place, but it can become manipulative and obscure the larger picture.

Worse, it can become self-promotional: “Is this compassion or is it congratulations?” he asks. “It’s almost as if the networks are saying, ‘Look at our correspondent down there.’ It gives me an uncomfortable, queasy feeling.”

Pish-tosh, says a CBS exec:

“It’s a legitimate question to ask whether you’re jeopardizing fair and honest coverage by letting someone involved in the story report it,” says Paul Friedman, executive vice president of CBS News. “But we feel it’s something we can do without prostituting ourselves or misleading the audience.”

Not sure those are the only two pitfalls, but why get technical about it.