REDLANDS, Calif. — Reporters on Friday were allowed inside the rental home of the couple identified as the shooters in this week’s deadly attack in San Bernardino, a decision that resulted in the live broadcast of photographs and other personal items on cable news.
While inside the property, MSNBC showed reporter Kerry Sanders rifling through pictures, including at least one of a child.
“Let’s make sure we don’t see the children,” said Andrea Mitchell, as the photograph was shown. “Let’s not show the child, Kerry. Let’s cut away from that.”
During the broadcast, MSNBC also displayed a driver’s license, a crib and shredded paper inside a waste bin.
“We regret that we briefly showed images of photographs and identification cards that should not have been aired without review,” MSNC said in a statement.
CNN, in an e-mail to The Washington Post, said it “made a conscious editorial decision not to show close-up footage of any material that could be considered sensitive or identifiable, such as photos or ID cards.”
The Associated Press reported it visited the home, but did not touch anything.
Doyle Miller, the home’s landlord, said he decided to allow one media organization to tour the site. Miller, speaking outside the low-slung two-story property, said others then “stormed in.”
Miller said he was allowing others, including The Post, access to the home “for now.”
Department of Justice officials said the crime scene was closed down and the landlord was free to do anything with the home.
“Once we turn that location back over to the occupants of that residence, or once we board it up, anyone who goes in at that point, it’s not up to us,” David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said at a Friday news conference.
The decision to broadcast live from the home — and, in particular, MSNBC’s broadcast of personal, identifiable items found inside — shocked many viewers, including some journalists, who found the spectacle of reporters and photographers rifling through photo albums and identifying documents deeply jarring.
Kelly McBride, a media ethicist and vice president at Poynter, a journalism institute, said that such live broadcasts amounted to “an act of voyeurism instead of journalism.”
