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Another non-political theme was the heroism of the ordinary citizens as bullets whizzed by. This is a theme that anchor Diane Sawyer is devoted to on ABC: "In a moment of crisis, would you decide to take action?" she asked, as she teased Sharyn Alfonsi's report. "Becoming a hero--meet three who did and learn why." Almost a year ago, Tyndall Report observed that for Sawyer, "what journalism can do uniquely is to elucidate the true moral core of humanity. By bearing witness to how individuals behave in extremis, her journalism seeks to reveal what we humans are made of, irrespective of age or station, background or nationality." Add Alfonsi's essay on Daniel Hernandez and William Badger and Patricia Maisch, to Sawyer's own speculation about being trapped by an earthquake, or lessons on being rescued from a copper mine, as she introduced Bill Weir and John Quinones and Elizabeth Vargas. Or, on a more trivial note, Steve Osunsami's thought experiment about becoming a sudden multimillionaire.
"Science tells us most heroes are afraid but they have the unique ability to react, to not be paralyzed by their fear--just like those who ran into the towers, who leapt into the floodwaters, who used whatever they had to do what they could when it counted," was the florid conclusion of Alfonsi's think piece. Contrast that with John Blackstone's understated account of the same Tucson events on CBS.
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