Ethical or not?
I guess the legal and ethical dilemma of a journalist always get shady especially when they are deciding between what is the public’s interest or what is interesting to the public. These are two completely different things. As the public’s interest can always mean a flood at orchard, something that is close to their proximity. However, what is interesting to the public may be entertainment or gossips about celebrities that does not affect the public, but entertains them.
Taking celebrity Bosco Wong as an example, He was recently photographed nude at his own home. This is clearly an invasion of privacy, ethically. However, according to the press, they did not enter his home to photograph him, but they zoomed into his home with a professional lens to snap pictures of him. This even caused an uproar amongst media giants of Hong Kong such as TVB as they said that it is completely immoral for the paparazzi to do such an act (Channel News Asia, 2011). Personally, I feel that this is not ethical at all. I guess being a celebrity means you will lose your privacy but does it mean that celebrities cannot even be themselves at home? Does that mean that they have to be constantly afraid that someone is watching them? I, for one, do not want to live such a lifestyle. But without these celebrities, we do not have our entertainment. So I guess we should cut them some slack.
Then, this leads us to ask the question why newspapers or magazines are publishing these stories as their front page news. The main reason would be money. These papers increase their ratings and viewership by publishing these kinds of stories as they know that the public enjoys the gossips especially if it involves high profile figures. I am guilty of it too as even though I feel sorry for these people, I will definitely read the news just to find out what is happening.
So the question we got to ask ourselves as we are going to be future journalists would be how far would we go to cross the line and publish these kinds of stories? When do we say no and where would you draw the line?
References
1) Channel News Asia, 2011. Bosco Wong furious over front page nudes [Online]. Available from: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/entertainment/view/1135727/1/.html (Accessed 9th July 2011).
Hey Nivitra,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, i agree with you that the legal and ethical dilemma of a journalist always get shady especially when they are deciding between what is the public’s interest or what is interesting to the public and that these are two completely different things.
As for your questions, i feel that as journalists in the making, we might go overboard and end up publishing similar stories, such as that of Bosco Wong. What we need to keep in mind when we come across such thing in our future career is that no matter what, we need to put forth the companies ethical guideline first, because afterall, we are working for a particular newspaper, which has unique characteristics. We can't possibly expect not to be assigned such stories when we are working for a tabloid paper, can we?
Heya Nivi,
ReplyDeleteI think in today's competitive media industry like in Singapore, newspaper companies have to sell their newspapers to make profits. Hence they do tend to sensationalize some news to earn money. Well, you can't really blame the journalist because they are just doing what they have been told to do. So I guess, the issue here is whether news companies should publish news for the public interest or news that is interesting to the public?
PS: This is the 2nd time I'm typing this comment because I forgot to type the password just now and closed the tab. lolz :P
Heya Nivi,
ReplyDeleteI think the issue here is whether the news companies should publish news for the public interest or news that is interesting to the public. In today's competitive media industry in Singapore, I think most news companies do try to sensationalize some news to a extent, so as to sell the newspapers and earn profits. But most of the times, they do end up invading a person's privacy or a celebrities privacy. So I guess it depends on the journalist's ethics and the agenda that the news companies have.