THE ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS RAISED BY A MEDIA STORY
Introduction
Media has become an important
channel for public awareness and political picture of the world. As a result,
the media agenda become an element which the preventatives of the western
democracy seeks to control. Even with the long public service media history,
government has never given up the attempt to influence/manage the media agenda,
and also did not stop the practice of manipulating the media. This has been
evident in the United States and other developed democracies. In particular, as
the relationship between the government and media has become increasingly
prominent in public relations for decades, the degree of government involvement
and manipulation of the media increased (Kiousis and McCombs, 2004). This has
been evident in most administrations in the United States. It seems that there
are huge imbalances between the government with its political power and the
media whose goal of monitoring the government has become increasingly difficult
to achieve (Uscinski, 2009). This reality has raised the question of media
ethic and the extent to which the present media and media personalities are
operating ethically. This paper discusses this argument in the light of a media
article published in Vanity Fair in October 2012 by Michael Lewis.
In NY Times, June 30, 2010 issue David Brooks commented, “It is true
that when you interview people you do develop relationships, and there is some
pressure not to burn the people you admire and rely on” (cited in Schwarz, Weiss and Whiton, 2012).
This is the same opinion held by Jeremy W. Peters in a New York Times,
July 15, 2012 issue. He suggested that “From Capitol Hill to the Treasury
Department, interviews granted only with quote approval have become the default
position. Those officials who dare to speak out of school, but fearful of
making the slightest off-message remark, shroud even the most innocuous and
anodyne quotations in anonymity by insisting they be referred to as a ‘top
Democrat’ or a ‘Republican strategist’” (cited Schwarz, Weiss and Whiton, 2012). This has been the norm of
media reporting in the contemporary society. This raises the question of the
responsibility of the media to the public or rather the ethical responsibility
of the media. Media generally has a social responsibility. However, the two
quotes in this introduction raise the question of ethical reporting by the
media reporters who have the responsibility of acting as watchdogs for the
members of the public.
Lewis is said to have made a
drastic appeal to the White House that he argues to have been sire would be
denied. He wanted to publish an article Vanity Fair concerning the president
of the United States that would put the audience in the shoes of the president.
This required the reporter to have inside access into the White House. He
wanted to simply hang around with the president to be able to access that mind
of information. He intended for the process to be free-flowing; he
wanted to engage in such activities like playing basketball with the president.
He wanted to be with him in the golf field, attend meetings with him and just being
around the president like no other reporter has been able to do in the past. He
was surprised when his request was granted by the White House and the president
was prepared to engage with him (Schwarz,
Weiss and Whiton, 2012).
Over the following six months, the
reporter was allowed to accompany the president on Air Force One and had
conversations with him regarding the surprises, challenges, and decision making
processes which came with the responsibility of being a president and the
commander-in-chief. The article which he published following the encounter with
the president went into details of how he was able to strike a balance between
the aspect of public relations related to his work with the never-ending string
of decisions that are required, and the way the president is powerful and
powerless, at the same time. In the article, it was suggested by the reporter
that the presidency has the god-like powers particularly concerning the foreign
affairs. This means that it is required for the president to have so much power
in some occasions and in other occasions, particularly those concerning domestic
affairs, he is powerless. The article revealed the disconnection between his powerfulness
and his powerlessness as being particularly striking (Schwarz, Weiss and Whiton, 2012).
In the efforts to come up with an
interesting and informative article, Lewis intended to set up an extremely
natural environment in order for him to observe the president without much
concern about the way the final print will look like. There was therefore an
agreement of not making it obvious that he was searching for information for
the article. This was the basis for the agreement to allow the white House to
censor conversations between the reporter and the president. Therefore, the
conversations were sent to the White House for editing before they could come
out in print (Schwarz, Weiss
and Whiton, 2012).
The article, titled, “Obama’s
Way,” has attracted a lot of attention from the public and other media for
getting access to information from and relating to the United States President,
Barrack Obama. Lewis is argued to have been given extensive access to the
president for information on the article. This is interestingly rare in the
country and any Journalist would “sell his soul” to get such information.
Considering the timing of the article, very close to the general elections in
the country, it would be so hard for a journalist to be granted access to such
information as published by Lewis. The article published by Lewis touched a lot
on leadership. Given the argument that the author got access to the president
for the information, this article can be argued to be of much interest to the
members of the public (Lewis, 2012).
Lewis reveals that there were
pre-conditions for access to the information, for his article, from the White
House. Lewis also admitted that the White House had to approve each quote that
was to form the content of the article. This is simply saying that there was
quote approval required by the reporter from the White House. He replied
to Peters question on whether or not there were some quotes that were left out
of the article that it was true there were some things that were left out.
However, he claimed that the information that was left out did not have much
relevance to the article, such information as a conversation between the
president and his political strategists regarding the electoral strategy in
Florida. However, the reporter claimed, in the interview with Peters, that
there was one specific interesting conversation with the president that he
wished he could have gotten the chance to explain in details (Lewis, 2012).
This article has continued to
raise significant questions regarding sourcing for the media stories and
articles. This article is interesting for this discussion as an ethical issue
related to letting the White House to endorse quotations. The reporter has been
clearly revealed to surrender some of his own independence as a journalist for
the sake of acquiring information from the White House. It is suggested that
the only way he would gain access to the important information is by allowing the
White House to have its way (Lewis, 2012).
In the same issue New York
Times July 15, 2012 quoted in the introduction, Jeremy W. Peters wrote in
an article titled, “Latest Word on the Trail? I Take it Back”:
“[The White House] press office
has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name . . .
.Most reporters, desperate to pick the brains of the president’s top strategists,
grudgingly agree. After the interviews, they review their notes, check their
tape recorders and send in the juiciest sound bites for review. . . . Now, with
a millisecond Twitter news cycle and an unforgiving, gaffe-obsessed media
culture, politicians and their advisers are routinely demanding that reporters
allow them final editing power over any published quotations” (cited in Schwarz, Weiss and Whiton,
2012).
In media, there is need to quote
correctly, but that is completely opposed to letting sources to do away with
some important remarks. This is the question of allowing the sources to delete
what is considered confidential or controversial and should not be fed to the
public. In a democratic society, this is source of great debate in as far as
the media is concerned. The media has
always fought for this practice to be eradicated in the democratic society.
This shows a kind of control by the influential sources of news. News control and
censorship are precisely what is meant by then terms. This problem seems to
have led to an ethical question of the media being cozy with the sources of the
news for the sake of getting juicy stories.
This is argued to not only being unethical, but also being against the
principle of an open society or a free press (Kiousis and McCombs, 2004).
This goes back to the story of the
gatherers of news stories such as Michael Lewis, who gather information by
being cozy with the potential sources of juicy stories like the public
officials and politicians. It is evident that the public officials and the
politicians make use of the media and the reporters to get to the people the
information they want out there. This causes them to edit all the information
or quotes that might harm them incase they circulate (Briggs and Burke, 2010).
In the case where the information
is not edited, the reporters are made by the reporters to use anonymous
sources. This is another ethical issue that has emerged in the article in the Vanity
Fair written
by Michael Lewis. The question arises on whether it was necessary
for Lewis to hide the names or identities of the persons commenting on the
behavior of the Head of State in a meeting on Libya held on March 15, 2011. The
use of descriptions like “one of the participants at the meeting,” “says one
participant,” “says another person at the meeting,” “says one witness,” and “recalls
one eyewitness” has come out to criticize the ethical behavior of the media in
covering news related to public officials (cited in Schwarz, Weiss and Whiton, 2012). These questions arises given the argument
that what was being covered by the reporter was not top security matter or the
personal views of the Head of State, but responses by the public regarding the
behavior of the Head of State. The ‘principals’ attending the meeting had
already been revealed by the reporter. It would be interesting and of public
importance for the people commenting on the behavior of the president to be
revealed on the story. An additional issue is that the reporter fails to reveal
whether or not he attended the entire meeting, which would be important for the
people to be told as the meeting was an interesting part of an ongoing foreign
policy issue (Briggs and Burke, 2010).
By the use of unidentified sources
and allowing the White House to censor the information, the article suggests
that anonymous sources most of the time give information for their self
interest. These kinds of sources provide the opportunity for the journalist and
the editor to get sources that agree with their points of view. In this case,
the reporters and the sources develop a complicit relationship in which the
truth most of the time take a back seat in favor of convenience. While the
sources let out their views to the public, in exchange to the scoop, the
reporters report them in the manner that is in the interest of the sources.
Therefore the public officials make use of the reporters to convey significant
information to the public in a manner that suits them best (Briggs and Burke,
2010).
It is an ethical practice for the
journalists to write news stories without identifying their sources in the
event that the source does not want to be identified. However, in this case,
the story is written without quotations. There are exceptions which emerge in
case identification of the source will put a life in danger. This also happens
in the case of whistle blowing and when there is need for national security.
Therefore, it is unethical when the journalists are out to protect personal interests
(Fourie, 2008).
Media empowerment has become an
indicator of real democracy and a means to enlighten the society. The media is
expected to act as a watchdog for the society or as an eye for the society in
the affairs and the leadership of the community. This means that the media has
a responsibility, which is to provide guidance to the youth and the society in
general, as well as to provide objective information to the people,
particularly on matters of public interest (Fourie, 2008). The media has a
responsibility in ensuring that what the leaders are doing is reported to the
people as a way of making them accountable. In a society where the media has a
responsibility to the people, there will be transparency and integrity in
leadership. However, this has not been the case. People have developed a blind
faith in the media and thus held the belief that what is conveyed in it is
correct. This has led to the people being misled by the very channel that is
meant to be showing them the way. The contemporary media is failing the very
people that have had a great faith in it. It is a fact to argue that the media
is becoming oblivious to its responsibility to the society (Lazarsfeld and
Merton, 1948).
It emerges that the media is deviating
from the ethics and principles on which it is established. The media has the
responsibility of revealing the truth objectively and ethically. On the
contrary, currently the media sensationalizes news items and protects the
interests of the sources of juicy stories. It concentrates on providing details
that are not factual, or worse still details that are manufactured. In the
competitive world, also the media is in the business of selling to make profit.
However, it has become impossible for the public to know where to draw the line
or where the limit is (Lazarsfeld and Merton, 1948).
Conclusion
This paper has discussed and
evaluated the question of media ethics in the light of a media article
published in Vanity Fair in October 2012 by Michael Lewis. It
has emerged that rather than being ‘with’ and ‘for’ the public the media has
become distant. Currently, the media personalities concentrate on the big grand
stories. It has become very important that the reporters get these stories (Briggs
and Burke, 2010). They are willing to be bought by the public officials only to
be able to air what these officials want aired. This means leaving out what
would be of real significance and interest to the public.
References
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action, in Lyman Bryson (ed.), The Communication of Ideas. New York,
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Lewis's Obama Article in Vanity Fair, Retrieved on October 12, 2012 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-r-schwarz/media-ethics-issues-raise_b_1888951.html
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