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MCR 2:  Media Ethics or Legal Issues

The White House Stages Its 'Daily Show'

By Frank Rich

February 20, 2005

New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/arts/20rich.html?pagewanted=1&oref=login

 

                 Frank Rich is appalled at the behavior of the White House for hiring six people (so far this year) to pass themselves off as journalists, and use this role to lob softball questions at the President during press conferences and otherwise promote propaganda for the GOP.   This editorial documents several pressing ethical issues reported in the text and raises even more troubling questions.  Who exactly should be counted as a journalist?  Is reporting for an online site news?  Is it ethical for a government official’s PR firm to pay journalists?  Finally, how much of this is the media’s fault?

                 Chapter 14 extensively discussed a journalist’s ethical obligation to balance several different competing interests at once.  Two of the harder interests to reconcile are the obligation to society and the obligation to the business paying the bills.  Because journalism is not an industry that has any sort of licensing process, anyone can be hired and pass themselves off as a legitimate reporter.  Sometimes, the financial supporters do not want someone with journalistic training and integrity, they just want someone willing to push a political agenda that is similar to their own.  This really obliterates any obligation to report the truth to society at large.  The existence of such conflicts of interest due to financial concerns should, at the very least, be open to the public.  People have to know where the news that they are hearing is actually coming from and why it it’s coming that way.

                 The book talks about how it is the media’s social responsibility to regulate itself.   If the government, or a government official, is encouraging this blatant blurring of ethical lines, is this a form of regulation or even deregulation?  My opinion is that it is flat-out unethical.  As a media consumer, it makes me very wary as to where I am receiving my news.  I am very skeptical of what all American media outlets purport to be the truth, because they don’t do enough to counter such disregard for journalistic ethics and integrity.  As part of policing itself, Jeff Gannon should have been put through the ringer by the media, but he wasn’t.  Instead, this barely made a blip on any radar screen or news outlet.  Fundamentally, for a government to pay for positive news coverage undermines the very basis of democracy, which depends on free speech in a marketplace of ideas in order to function.  When the government unduly and dishonestly influences the news, the truth gets lost, and that’s the biggest outrage of all.

Copyright 2005

by Amanda Evans

Date: 12/08/03