Blog 4 – Documenting Violences and offensive contents by Min Namgung

Documenting Violences and offensive contents

Part.1 Situation Definition

One of the ethical challenges in the field of journalism that stands out to me was the rising issue of reporting violences and offensive contents. Documenting violences has been a highly-debated and controversial issue in the field of journalism as a result of an argumentative issue of invasion and protection of privacy for individuals. As the audiences have the rights to be respected and protected from the media, the journalists nowadays must keep in mind that the contents of the reports do matter and can have a severe influence for both the audiences and the journalists.

There are some specific cases related to the issues of reporting violences. For example, a close look at the journalists competing for the Prize Winner in Breaking News Photography in 2014 exemplifies the issues of reporting violences and offensive contents as well as an invasion of privacy of the audiences. The two separate cases of Tyler Hicks and John Tlumacki both associate with documenting violences with the contrasting outcomes of publishing gruesome and grim contents.

Part.2 Analysis

Today’s journalists are facing a massive decision-making challenge of putting the appropriate contents that arose with the rapidly-growing issue of privacy invasion. The journalists encounter a question on how to document the violences and other horrifying images very frequently in their reporting lives. The followings reveal how two different journalists handled their work.

In 2013, Tyler Hicks for The New York Times who ran into a mall shooting in Nairobi with his camera captured some photos of the victims, including a woman lying down on a ground and bleeding profusely, and published the New York Times Lens Blog. When the photo of the woman ran into Nairobi newspaper, the Executive editor for Nairobi newspaper got fired as he got blamed for being too insensitive with the gruesome and brutal images and contents he produced as well as the privacy invasion-related reasons.

On top of the coverage of the sorrowful and bloody massacre of the innocent civilians that took away more than 70 Nairobi people’s lives at the mall, the case of John Tlumacki who was at the scene of Boston Marathon bombing demonstrates a good example of documenting violences with disturbing images. Even though he already captured and sent some photos of the winners celebrating to his editor, he frantically ran back to the scenes in order to get more pictures after hearing the thundering bombing. When he got to the scene of chaos, he waited for the moment of emotion, and took the photos consisting of men and women with serious injuries. As John recalls the event as ‘the most gruesome event I have ever been to in my career’, he was responsible for reporting this horrible incidents appropriately by minimizing the harm for the audiences.

John Tlumacki was aware of the fact that the visuals are the first thing that the readers look at. The supporting experiment of NPPA Research Project further illustrates the idea of people’s attention when reading the reports. The research was to investigate and measure what people are looking at any given time and how long they look and consume the contents. The participants were given any random 200 photographs that were used in the U.S. news organizations in 2014. Then, with the eye tracking devices, and infrared camera that captures the gaze of the eyes, the red dot, the indication of the most focused spot on the news, appears on the screen where people focused on the most. The intriguing finding of NPPA research project suggests that photos get the most attention. According to Sara Quinn, the author of NPPA news, “Images attract a lot of attention – Often they are where eyes go first” (Quinn, 2015).

When it comes down to making a decision to add disturbing contents such as graphic violence, gore, dead bodies, nudity, perceived invasion of privacy, and juveniles doing dangerous things, journalists must expect to confront a question on what appropriate contents to put and how outcomes can lead to negative reactions from the readers. Especially, we, as a journalist, must be responsible and cautious about ‘public grief’ that contains an image of ordinary people in public under horrible circumstances as it might lead to a callous intrusions into privacy. According to the author of the book The Ethical Journalist: Making Responsible Decisions in the Digital Age‘, Gene makes a critical point that these photos “are a source of controversy in the profession because of the competing emotions they evoke – empathy for the subjects or anger with the news media for the perceived intrusion”(Gene Foreman, 2016).

Therefore, we have to think about how we are going to minimize the harm and appeal to the public at the same time. Gene asserts his strong point, “It might also be possible to crop out an offensive detail while preserving the newsworthy elements of the image. Online, an editor could run a cautionary note suggesting user discretion and then require the user to click on a link in order to see the photograph” (Gene Foreman, 2016).

The story on Jeff Bouman, the survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing who lost both of his legs also shows a fantastic example of protecting the audiences as Gene mentions. The story won Pulitzer prize for NTY as the editors acted as gatekeepers to control what should be filtered on the contents. They did not show full photograph as they cropped photos so the images of legs would not be shown. The Jeff Bouman case impeccably represents the philosophy of “Either show it or don’t. Don’t edit”.

Another very necessary points that we have to keep in mind are recognizing the scale of the problem and who are involved in the event. Journalists are likely to run something historical events such as 9/11 attack or other natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. Michele McNally, assistant managing editor of photography at The New York Times defends the disturbing images her publication used. She sends five journalists to get information on the matter of a natural disaster. She insists “The photographers wanted the world to see, to know how horrible it was”(McNally, 2013).

I am strongly convinced that there is a primary objective to deliver unbiased information and truth to the audiences with a crucial social responsibility as a journalist. Therefore, If I were to put the graphic and disturbing images, I would consider the factors mentioned above. For example, I would try to check thoroughly and recognize any images that are likely to offend a number of the readers. On top of the scrutiny, I will apply some of the theories of decision-making such as rule-based thinking, ends-based thinking, and Aristotle’s Golden mean, depending on the case. For example, with the underlying theory of rule-based thinking, I can run “The Wheaties test” to see if the contents are fine to be watched, reported, or read ‘while eating breakfast’. If I consider it to be not fulfilling my responsibility of informing the public as a journalist, I will apply the second theory of decision making. The ends-based thinking will be applied if I consider the news to be very crucial or valuable to the needs of the society. Lastly, with the theory of Aristotle’s Golden Mean, I will consider the size of the images as well as locations of them with cautionary note and other things to find the finest balance of two compelling sides.

Part.3 Conclusion

I think it was a great chance to look at the topic of my interest, documenting violences and offensive contents because the reports on these topics are very prevalent, but are considered, and dealt lightly compared to other several countries outside the U.S. This matter should be treated with more serious recognition and view as a citizen in the way that it involves more than just ethical issues. The social and mental issues follow up. According to ‘Media role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombings’, EA Hollman claims from her studies that the excessive exposure of the contents on media leads to the perpetuation of activation of fear circuitry in one’s brain, contributing to the abnormal consolidation of fear conditioning, which is related to the development of acute and PTS responses. She mentions, “Media exposure keeps the acute stressor active and alive in one’s mind. Repeated media exposure may contribute to the development of trauma-related disorders by prolonging or exacerbating acute trauma-related symptoms (Hollman, 2013).

As the editors want to build a loyal audiences as well as building a credibility and reputation simultaneously, they will try to avoid those contents as they are aware of the fact that news consumer will turn their backs by getting offended by what they see, read and hear, and go elsewhere to gain information. Therefore, there should be a great deal of attentions and recognition of the issues from both he citizens and the journalists. From the research itself, I have gained a lot of knowledge on this matter and am fully aware of the actions required as a journalist. Overall, it was a very beneficial assignment not only just for social aspects but also for educational purpose.

Part.4 References

1) How should news organizations handle graphic content in the social media age? (n.d.). Retrieved April 05, 2018, from https://www.cjr.org/analysis/this_summer_saw_the_on-camera.php

2) Foreman, G. (2016). The ethical Journalist: making responsible decisions in the digital age. Hoboken: Wiley.

3) Chernow, S. (2017, December 15). Graphic Content and The Moral Gap In Western Journalism. Retrieved April 05, 2018, from https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/graphic-content-and-the-moral-gap-in-western-journalism

4) Holman, E. A., Garfin, D. R., & Silver, R. C. (2014, January 07). Retrieved April 05, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3890785/


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