We shouldn't forsake our humanity just to make the most of a story.

The Haitian earthquake has been dominating the headlines recently, with hope and misery and life and death all taking up column inches of the paper as bodies and survivors are pulled from the rubble. With most of the worlds media focused on the small Caribbean island, many journalists have flown over to report on the disaster.

CNN's Anderson Cooper is one of these. While there, he saved the life of a small boy who'd been hit on the head with a cinder block. This has raised the question over journalistic interference in Haiti by providing help to locals.

Now, this to me is a simple question to answer. As someone who's training to be a journalist and as someone who's first aid trained, if I saw someone in need of help I'd provide that help, journalism be damned! Yes journalists have a duty to be impartial, but this is a natural disaster and one of the worst on record. It's not like it's a general election where we can be accused of being partial to one party or another, it's a disaster where thousands of people have died. Do we all want to end up like Kevin Carter, visiting places and exploiting them for the news values and doing nothing to help?

I see that video of Anderson Cooper and I feel proud that there are people in my chosen profession who are willing to forsake and rules they may have been taught in order to go and do what's right. It's important to remember that beyond our duties as journalists, we have duties as human beings.