Situation Defined
Two summers ago, New York Giants defensive Jason Pierre-Paul was involved in a fireworks accident that resulted in his right index finger needing to be amputated. After the incident occurred, there was a lot of speculation as to the severity of the injury. There were claims that an amputation was possible, as well as nerve damage and skin grafts being necessary, but nothing definitive. Then ESPN NFL reporter Adam Schefter received Pierre-Paul’s medical records from the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Fl. showing that his finger was amputated.
Clearly, this brings up a lot of ethical dilemmas, as well as legal issues with releasing his medical records with HIPAA laws. These laws were enacted to ensure the privacy of individual medical records (Bergman). Also, this can also bring into questions about how Schefter even obtained a copy of the records in the first place. Finally, even though this case was settled out of court, if it had gone to trial, Schefter would’ve been placed in a difficult situation of keeping the sources of how he got the records a secret or not.
Analysis
To start off, Schefter did not violate any HIPAA laws when he tweeted out the medical records. ESPN made a statement saying that those laws do not apply to news organizations — but if a health care worker leaked the information to Schefter, than that person would be in violation of the law (Stelter). ESPN and Schefter were able to not be liable in any legal sense because they didn’t actively assist the leakers in carrying out the records, they passively received the information (Wemple). What Schefter did was highly unethical, and with ESPN standing behind the fact that HIPAA laws doesn’t apply to news organizations showed that there weren’t interested in keeping the privacy of a human being. The organization wanted to be the first outlet with the inside source.
On the other hand, Schefter’s job is to report on the NFL. Since Pierre-Paul is a highly talented player in the league, the public had a high interest in finding out details of what had happened. Kelly McBride, a media ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, is aware of the significance of the story. “Of course it’s news” that a prominent NFL player lost a finger in a fireworks accident, she said. “But is posting medical records the best way to break that news? Even if you are operating super-fast, don’t you serve your audience better by gathering a little more context?” (Stelter).
Conclusion
I definitely think that in no way Schefter should’ve released Pierre-Paul’s medical records. Even though he didn’t break any laws in doing so, this was highly unethical and put a dent in his reputation as a reporter. Those records should be kept private and not released unless given consent by the person in question. It’s important to discuss this because high-profile athletes get hurt often, and even though it’s not usually to this extent, those records should be kept private and undisclosed just like the HIPAA laws intended to do so.
References
Bergman, H. (2011, November 02). What is HIPAA? (The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Ed.). Retrieved April 12, 2017, from https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-guide-medical-privacy-law/what-hipaa
Stelter, B. (2015, July 18). ESPN reporter tweets player’s medical charts, and ethical questions erupt. Retrieved April 12, 2017, from http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/08/media/jason-pierre-paul-espn-adam-schefter-hipaa/
Wemple, E. (2015, July 09). Twitter stupidly freaks out about ESPN, Jason Pierre-Paul and HIPAA. Retrieved April 12, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/07/09/twitter-stupidly-freaks-out-about-espn-jason-pierre-paul-and-hipaa/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.28d2fa02b223