Blog 3: Case Study-The Louisville Courier-Journal Article on United Airlines Altercation
By, Taila Proctor-Jackson
Last Sunday April 9th David Dao, a passenger on United Airlines Express flight 3411, was aggressively removed out of his seat by O’Hare International airport security personnel in Chicago. The entire altercation was caught on camera and immediately posted on social media. Apparently, the flight was oversold by four seats and the crew randomly selected four passengers to be removed from the flight and rebooked on another flight. David Dao, a doctor from Kentucky, refused to get up from the seat and claimed he had to meet with patients in the morning. The video shows security officers dragging him off the plane, while his head violently hits the arm rest. All over social media, the public expressed their outrage for both the fact that the airline had oversold the flight and the way Dr. Dao was removed. United Airlines has sinced issued a public apology and refunded all the passengers who were on the flight.
The Louisville Courier-Journal published an article that exposed Dr. Dao’s criminal past. According to the article the Doctor was involved in a drug scandal where he wrote prescriptions in exchange for sexual favors over twelve years ago. Many journalists criticized the news outlet for adding his criminal background into the article by calling it “irrelevant” and “irresponsible journalism.” While others supported the article by claiming the journalist did its job by reporting an actual and factual depiction of the doctor. This brings a question of whether or not the journalist acted ethically when reporting on Dr. Dao.
I think it would have been different if his criminal record involved Dr. Dao being violent or combative. Then maybe in that circumstance, the journalist would have be justified for writing about his criminal past. Instead, the charges had absolutely nothing to do with the altercation on the aircraft. According to English scholars Susan Greenberg and Judi Wheelwright, it is the responsibility of the journalist to be aware and coherent of “the additional consequences that can result from the reporting of events to a wider public: the magnitude of those events and of the reporting act itself.” It seems as if the journalist was painting a negative depiction of Dr. Dao in order to justify or distract from the horrible way Dao was dragged off the plane. In the age of social media and in such an extensive information sharing culture, It is likely that Dao’s criminal past would have surfaced either way. However, It is not the responsibility of the journalist to dig up irrelevant skeletons from Dr. Dao’s past. I think it was not only unethical but just wrong.
References:
Greenberg, S., & Wheelwright, J. (2014). Literary journalism: Ethics in three dimensions. Journalism, 15(5), 511-516.
Wyatt, W. N. (2012). The Citizen Side of Journalism Ethics. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 27(4), 297-298.