PressEthic

Foreign reporters always face more problems that the national or local journalists do not often have. For instance, the international reporter that enters a foreign country, the one thing he or she encounters are the cultural problems. A bigger problem than that is the extent of journalism awareness among the people of that new country.

There are many countries in the world that they have not experienced journalism the way it has been practiced in the western world for many years. This creates a big dilemma for the international reporters because sourcing work can not be achieved easily.

My point is that – which is the ethical issue - there are journalists who exploit this situation. Because most of the ordinary people do not have any knowledge about journalism in such societies, international reporters usually ask them questions without identifying themselves and they don’t explain what it means to quote somebody or to mention a name – it doesn’t matter; their editors and publisher are not there-. They just interview them and publish whatever they would like choose from what they said.

In recent years, there is a trend in a country like Iraq for example that local news publications translate what foreign journalists wrote on their issues and they publish it in the local language.

Do you know that in this process, many people who were quoted and their names have been motioned would face many kinds of problems. For example, if women form Iraq were interviewed by an international reporter to talk about honor killing in their tribe or town, then they would face lots of problems. It would even increase the honor killings in their communities if the article would be translated and published again in a local paper and would be seen by their audience.

This is what most international correspondents should be aware of and take it into consideration. This is a real ethical dilemma.