PressEthic

In response to my previous post, Willem Marx, concluded that what we can both agree on the adage, ‘what bleeds leads’. It is a sad reflection on the current media environment that this is indeed the case. Sensationalism, human interest stories and entertainment have been dominating news coverage for the past twenty years. This shift away from investigative and hard news is symptomatic of the prevailing commercial environment of our time. My concern is that ethics are coming second to the almighty dollar.

With advent of commercialization there has been an increased focus on the sensationalism of news stories. Commercialisation of the media occurred rapidly through the 1980s and 1990s. In "The Cost of Commercialization" (available at - Journalism and Mass Media Complete, NYU online database), Robert McChesney points out that:

The decline, even collapse, of journalism as a public service is apparent in every facet of the media. For network and national cable television, news has gone from being a loss-leader and a mark of network prestige to being a major producer of network profit.

This is emerging as a significant problem in the age of conglomerate-controlled journalism. In 1998, Disney-owned ABC News rejected a report by its leading investigative correspondent exposing labor and safety practices at Disney World in Florida. Although ABC News claimed the cancellation was due to factors other than the identity of the Subject, the stench of conflict of interest could not help but fill the air.

This is just one of many examples of how corporate pressure changes the news. News organizations must first think how they are to serve their owners, and then secondly think about informing their audience. If there is a clash in objectives (like the Disney example above) then, on the most part, it is the audience who will lose out.

McChesney goes on to explain that in order to make Journalism profitable, a number of journalists were laid off through the early 1980s. However I would like to concentrate on how commercialization has changed the content of the news. McChesney explains that news organizations in a commercial environment focus on…

Stories that are inexpensive and easy to cover, like celebrity lifestyle pieces, court cases, plane crashes, crime stories and shootouts. Not only are such stories cheaper to cover and air, they hardly ever enmesh the parent corporation in controversy, as do "hard" news stories.

News corporations are shifting their focus away from investigative and hard news stories, towards more spectacular events. The key idea here is that high brow news, aimed at informing the citizenry and facilitating democracy, is replaced by news designed to shock and entertain.

Consider network TV news. International news has declined from 45 percent of the network TV news total in the early 1970s to 13.5 percent in 1995…What replaced the expensive international news? The number of crime stories on network TV news programs tripled from 1990-92 to 1993-96.

There is a distinct parallel that as news organizations have become increasingly commercially orientated the shape of the news has changed. Sensationalism and entertainment have come to the fore because they are not only cheaper and easier to produce, than say political or international news, but they also appeal to the widest possible audience. All humans can identify with basic human emotions. Tragedy, love, joy, horror, and humor are accessible to any member of the audience. All human beings share these emotions. By appealing to human emotions with human interest stories and sensationalism, the news appeals to a wider audience.

This brings me back to my argument regarding the exploitation of the dead and their families in the pictures resulting from Hurricane Katrina. Visual depictions provide a very visceral experience for the audience. Humans are, in general, empathetic creatures. When we see such horror we feel. I believe news organizations are using these pictures to appeal to our base level human emotions to draw us in as in audience.

After all a picture of a dying human being is a lot more gripping (and a lot easier to provide) than an in-depth analysis. It is for this reason I find the use of these pictures exploitative. I am concerned editors are motivated to print these images, because they are driven by a commercial goal to shock and draw in the biggest possible audience. Audiences engage emotionally with such images and stories, they feel compelled to watch or read the news because they can empathize with the plight of another human being. This may seem ideal, as more people become aware of the tragedy. However emotional engagement on imporant issues can be dangerous, it can come at the price of context and analysis.

Furthermore the ideal (and ethical) motivation for editors to print these pictures should be based on whether they intensify the understanding of the Hurricane to such an extent that it is worth putting families of the victims through additional pain and torment. The decision should not be made on the notion that such sensational images will draw in one more viewer or reader.

New organizations that don’t necessarily agree with the depiction of such images or certain news agendas are pulled into the commercial whirl pool. It is often the case that you will sacrifice your audience if you chose not to display certain stories or pictures. If the audience know these pictures are out there; curiosity will drive people to another channel.

In today’s media climate, blood and gore make page one news. This reflects the current commercial environment existing in news organizations, rather than a system of news values that attempt to inform us as citizens. The death of a human being should not be used to sell just another paper.