Morals of Journalism?

[Sir Winston Churchill]

Now in my opinion, "Journalists" today have pretty much lost what it means to tell the news. That's bad enough as it is trying to find out what's going on in the world today and all I can find are stories of celebrities breaking up or otherwise. However I also think they don't care what they do to get "a story".

For instance, say a reporter is reporting some kind of hostage situation. He finds out that there is an undiscovered FBI agent undercover in there. Totally ignoring what danger he might present to the hostages, he blabs his mouth about in on National TV. You can see where this leads.

This, is a don't in my opinion.

The correct way would be to wait until after the whole ordeal is over with, and then talk about how the FBI had an undercover agent inside, and any other goodies that are left afterwords. This is all my opinion of course.

Also how about these guys who run around these horrible, sad scenes, and nearly kill each other to get a picture of some little kid crying while holding the helmet of his father who is a fire fighter who just got killed. I mean, the kid must be in drama enough, do you really want to rub it in and start taking pictures of it?

I don't know, it's just my opinion. Freedom of the Press of course, but it doesn't mean I agree with their morals. I mean, what do you think?

[Taiji]

Aren't you just stereotyping all journalists to fit your narrow view?

[D.B. Cooper]

Completely disagree, at least where I am journalists, especially newspapers and the radio, are good at what they do.

[Kip]

I am close to agreeing with the OP in principle, but the examples he provided are pretty extreme, and situations similar to those are the extreme minority of cases in practice. Journalists report the news - its their job, after all. They're bound by a code of ethics, just as many other professions are; we as the public have a right to know many things, and without decent journalism a lot of these things would remain secret. That being said, however, if a story is going to create more problems than its worth, I think reporters should also think twice before printing it. But should all problematic stories be withdrawn? I disagree with that.

An example is the Abu Ghraib (sp?) scandal a few years ago. The guards responsible for the abuse had already been disciplined prior to the release of the photographs - a common misconception is that the soldiers involved were getting off scott-free until the photos were printed, at which point the army punished them. That's not truly the case. Anyways, I might argue that the issue was moot at the time of the printing (since most, if not all, of the guards were already being punished), and the actual result of the story was just to create more anti-American fervor in the Middle East and Iraq. Can anyone prove that this story resulted in the deaths of Western troops? Absolutely not, and that's not what I'm trying to argue. I suppose I'm just saying there are situations where the ramifications of a news story can have unintended effects, and to me, the worth of a story should probably be considered before publishing it.

Now, let's examine this same scenario from the eyes of a journalist. Whatever paper/outlet/journalist got his hands on the photo, has got his hands on a headline-making story. What he's holding, in terms of journalism, isn't insignificant: it's the truth. No matter how damning, no matter how dangerous, a journalist has the right (responsibility/obligation?) to report it to the public. Even looking at it in simple terms of career shows that a story is likely to come out; if one journalist or paper doesn't publish something, you'd better believe that another will.

In the example of the undercover FBI agent, of course the press shouldn't report it. All that that story would do is get the agent killed. However, that's something that I don't think would happen; think of how many undercover operations US law enforcement must be executing, and then think of how many stories in the paper you've read revealing the identities of undercover officers. There's a difference between unethical reporting and plain scum-bag reporting - only a scuzzy reporter out to advance his/her career would intentionally endanger somebody's life in order to get a story. I'm not too familiar with the whole Valerie Plame situation (so someone will have to correct me), but I believe her identity was leaked to the press as a political move (her husband was anti-Iraq or something, right? So Bush aides leaked her name as "retribution"). She was an analyst though, not an agent whose life was in danger. It ruined her career, which of course upsets me, and I wish it never had happened, but the press isn't to blame in this scenario; it was the aides who leaked her identity for political agenda.

There are things that shouldn't be printed - locations of nuclear weapons, missile silos, etc, have no business being in the paper. However, this debate skirts the thin red line of censorship, and that's something that needs to be avoided. All of the suggestions I've made would have to come from the reporters themselves, not the government. The decision not to run a story, for instance, needs to be the decision of a paper or a reporter - not the government. I would hope that a print journalist would have enough sense not to reveal locations of secret nuclear stockpiles to the public.

[Manco]

For instance, say a reporter is reporting some kind of hostage situation. He finds out that there is an undiscovered FBI agent undercover in there. Totally ignoring what danger he might present to the hostages, he blabs his mouth about in on National TV. You can see where this leads.

This, is a don't in my opinion.

The correct way would be to wait until after the whole ordeal is over with, and then talk about how the FBI had an undercover agent inside, and any other goodies that are left afterwords. This is all my opinion of course.

And how many times has something like this actually happened?

I know of several cases where the police didn't ever think of informing journalists, cameramen, and media helicopters that certain events should not be told or filmed.
There's a famous case (for the life of me I don't remember the location anymore) in the 80's where a hostage rescue is foiled because the hostage takers could see the police getting ready to breach. Everyone was quick to blame the media, but it was the police who apparently hadn't noticed the same chopper being there for over an hour already, and never warned the chopper and cameraman to not film them preparing.
People are quick to blame media nowadays.

Also how about these guys who run around these horrible, sad scenes, and nearly kill each other to get a picture of some little kid crying while holding the helmet of his father who is a fire fighter who just got killed. I mean, the kid must be in drama enough, do you really want to rub it in and start taking pictures of it?

That's not morals. It's the consequence of expecting news media enterprises (especially television) to follow the same market rules as any other company.
The sobbing distraught kid sells. That's not the media's fault, but the viewer's fault.
Back in the 60's and 70's when PBC was a lot more popular, news media didn't have to shoot these images because their funds didn't depend on the revenue of those images.

[Kip]

And how many times has something like this actually happened?

I know of several cases where the police didn't ever think of informing journalists, cameramen, and media helicopters that certain events should not be told or filmed.
There's a famous case (for the life of me I don't remember the location anymore) in the 80's where a hostage rescue is foiled because the hostage takers could see the police getting ready to breach. Everyone was quick to blame the media, but it was the police who apparently hadn't noticed the same chopper being there for over an hour already, and never warned the chopper and cameraman to not film them preparing.
People are quick to blame media nowadays.

I know the example you're thinking of, but I can't recall the exacts either. The hostiles watched the police assemble outside the building on their own darned t.v. sets. But as you said, that's not the media's fault, it's the police's fault for forgetting to notify the media to stay away. It wasn't incompetence from either the media or the police; it was a simple error of communication.

[Morkonan]

...I don't know, it's just my opinion. Freedom of the Press of course, but it doesn't mean I agree with their morals. I mean, what do you think?

Well, I have some pretty strong feelings about the current "journalism" in America. But, I'll try to be as brief as possible.

First of all, there's a difference between "ethics" and morals in a professional setting. Ethics are guidelines for behavior, morals are a bit more ephemeral. So, while something may be viewed as "ethical" behavior for a journalist, some (including the same journalist) may consider it immoral.

For the USA, I think it is entirely necessary to recognize the intended purpose of a Free Press. After all, that's where journalism derives its power from in the USA. The Free Press's original intention was to be the Fourth Estate, particularly, to communicate the actions of the government and concerns of national interest to the voting people without restrictions placed upon them by the government. This would, supposedly, act to prevent an uninformed populace and act as a mitigating factor in the decisions of elected officials. After all, if everyone could know about your dastardly back-door real-estate deals, you'd be a little bit less inclined to undertake them as an elected official.. It wouldn't do you much good if an irate populace burned down your new, ill gained, house. A Constitutionally Empowered Free Press is generally a good thing to have.

But, that's really only as far as the Fourth Estate was empowered to go. The true problem arises when you start adding to it and serious issues begin to arise when various journalism agencies begin to compete with each other. Journalism has never been free from bias but, in today's world, journalism isn't what it used to be. Now, "journalism" is tainted with the idea of "Entertainment News." This is nowhere more evident than in broadcast media. In early television, news programming was a loss-leader. It was simply a few minutes at the end of the day for the television stations to do what they considered was their civic duty. Then, things changed and that media started to become important. The Big 3 started to use their news programming as flagships just like any other television series they aired. They became money-makers by drawing in station-loyal viewers and, as part of the competitive strategy, "Entertainment" was thrown into the mix.

Now, we have a situation where a Constitutionally Empowered, private organization has the means not only to "report" on anything they want but they actually have enough power to affect change themselves. They are no longer some stale news agency blandly reporting the political events of the day. They're powerhouses. How much moral distance is there separating someone from taking a Constitutionally protected private organization with an extremely visible public presence and turning it into a means for serving a particularly desired political purpose? All you have to do is select what stories you're going to cover and raise a few questions regarding opposing viewpoints. If you're entertaining enough, in today's world, it doesn't matter whether whatever you infer with your presentation is true or not - People love for others to do their thinking for them.

Ethically practice journalism is, IMO, a moral enterprise. But, we don't have much of that today being represented in the media. What we have, unfortunately, is a very large base of "Entertainment News" with only small percentages being devoted to true "journalism" as it was originally intended and Constitutionally empowered to be.

Heavy competition between agencies and no small desire on the part of publishers and directors to turn their agencies into agents of change serving their interests has driven the majority of the news media down a path that was never intended by the Constitution that grants them their very broad powers.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Well, yeah, I think what the op is talking about here is when journalists put people in danger through reporting a story. It would be easy to say this was an American problem, since America also blew prince harry's cover in Afghanistan. But in equally recent memory I can think of British papers publishing secret documents taken from the terrorism chief photographed arriving at downing street.