The investigative conclusion that no one aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could have survived its crash into the Indian Ocean came as a terrible blow to the victims’ families, who were informed via a clinical text message and have since continued to angrily demand answers.
But the news also took a toll on those journalists who have been reporting on the missing plane for more than two weeks, inevitably forging some emotional connection with those aboard. In the video below, China Central Television reporter James Chau, stationed in Kuala Lumpur, dissolves into tears on camera when he finds out that what little hope remained is gone.
Chau’s grief is a powerful reminder that in an era of globalization, these tragedies have an incalculable ripple effect, and the men and women striving to objectively relate the facts on the ground can never, in the end, fully disentangle themselves from the stories they cover.
