There's some sad news making waves in the Detroit media today with the revelation that former Channel 4 and Channel 7 reporter Suzanne Wangler apparently took her own life yesterday as she was facing felony charges in Oakland County for embezzlement. It's alleged that Wangler took about $150,000 from an acquaintance through an investment company she was running prior to going back to work in television for Channel 53 in Lansing.
What's made this newsworthy is a Channel 7 investigation piece that aired earlier this month that now has some pointing the finger at the station and its employees for being irresponsible in its reporting of the story. There's a long thread on this on the Michigan Buzzboard with several posters putting a lot of the responsibility for the outcome on 7 anchor/reporter Heather Catallo, who was the face of the initial news reports.
While it's absurd to assign total blame to a media outlet for someone committing suicide, it certainly seems like the nature of the reports was a mitigating circumstance in this case. But don't discount that there also appeared to be a lot more going in Wangler's life, like her home being in foreclosure and without heat.
Certainly the folks at Channel 7 need to address the role their reports played in this story publicly -- did they report the news or indeed become part of the story themselves? While there was definitely some news that needed to be reported here, did the station really need an investigation or where they just taking advantage of the fact that Wangler was a recognizable name to help promote their newscasts?
TV news has long been slipping as a trusted source of information, instead opting for blood, guts, and crime as the banner they carry (along with overuse of the 'breaking news' tag for everything). Now it looks like the efforts at channel 7 to over-sensationalize what should have been a simple news report has indirectly led to someone's death.
I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for Channel 7 to make a statement on this, but in order to keep any of the respect I have left for them, they need to come out and tell us that they are at least going to be more careful in their reporting decisions.
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