When do reporters stop reporting and render aid?

Average reading time (excluding links): 3m 30s   

al-Reuters has a story about when does a reporter stop reporting to instead render aid.

Reuters photographer Rick Wilking watched Sterling Broughton, an 82-year-old woman, fall out of a kayak perched on the bow of a crowded rescue boat that had become swamped with water.
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Journalists are trained to keep themselves safe in disaster situations. In dire conditions, like what Wilking saw, they can and do get involved.

Reporters and journalists put themselves in dangerous situations in order to capture the event they are covering and report it to the rest of the world. Many have died, or been killed, in their pursuing the story. Do a search on 'journalist beheaded' .

But when does a reporter stop reporting and instead put their efforts into helping others in a critical situation?

Kayak Lady; August 27, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Like any of us, a reporter can put their life in danger in making the decision to stop reporting and offer help.

In deciding to help save someone from drowning, you have to quickly calculate the odds and risks associated if your decision is helping rescue that person or, will you run the chance that they may pull you down in the water with them.

If a fire breaks out in the home of our neighbor, if we decide to try and help anyone trapped inside, what are the risks and odds that we might not exit that burning house?

I don't know the answer. I don't know what I would do. I would think - and hope - if the odds are I can help someone and keep my life, I'd follow through. Do any of us really know until we are faced with making that decision?

One prominent photo and story comes to mind in asking the question; when do reporters stop reporting to instead render help?

'The Vulture and the Little Girl'; photo: South African photojournalist, Kevin Carter.

From Rare Historical Photos.com:

The vulture is waiting for the girl to die and to eat her.
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The parents of the children were busy taking food from the plane, so they had left their children only briefly while they collected the food. This was the situation for the girl in the photo taken by [Kevin] Carter. A vulture landed behind the girl. To get the two in focus, Carter approached the scene very slowly so as not to scare the vulture away and took a photo from approximately 10 meters. He took a few more photos before chasing the bird away.
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 Practically overnight hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask whether the child had survived. [The] editor’s note [said] the girl had enough strength to walk away from the vulture, but that her ultimate fate was unknown. Because of this, Carter was bombarded with questions about why he did not help the girl, and only used her to take a photograph.

[The] St. Petersburg Times in Florida wrote: “The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering, might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene”. The attitude that public opinion condemned was not only that of taking the picture instead of chasing the vulture immediately away, but also the fact that he did not help the girl afterwards [sic]–as Carter explained later- leaving her in such a weak condition to continue the march by her self towards the feeding center.
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In 1994, Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer prize for the disturbing photograph[.] That same year, Kevin Carter committed suicide.
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[Carter] committed suicide by taping one end of a hose to his pickup truck’s exhaust pipe and running the other end to the driver’s side window. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 33.

The photo is heart-wrenching. Did Carter handle the situation properly? Part of me says 'no' yet part of me says 'sort of.'  I don't know. Your view and comments on this would be appreciated.
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Fix broken link to Rare Historical Photos site 9/2/2017 10:51AM