Journalists condemn Channel Seven
|
Here’s one of the tough gigs in journalism education: teaching privacy in the time of Facebook and Peter Meakin. Journalism students, fresh from the dispiriting “journalism is dead” debate, have asked colleagues all over Australia what we thought about Channel Seven’s exposure of David Campbell and the journalism of Meakin, Adam Walters and those who run the news agenda at the top-rating news station. The students were also asked what they’d do if they thought Campbell was holed up in Ken’s of Kensington on the day of the F3 traffic meltdown? (By the way, he wasn’t, despite what the Seven story implied.) These highly engaged young men and women, focused on a career in journalism, have talked about it at length for the past week, in classrooms, seminars, lectures and cafes. Was this what their careers were going to be about? Didn’t the MEAA Code of Ethics count for anything? And did it matter anyhow? Journalism educators — and some journalists — around Australia and with connections to the Australian media say the ethical foundations of journalism have been severely breached by the story — and more than 50 academics, representing almost every major journalism school in the country, have sent an open letter to Meakin, to Walters — and to those who own Seven. Academics and journalists such as Lawrie Zion, David Dale, Margaret Simons and Kayt Davies have put their names to the following statement:
There is, as well, a letter being circulated by student journalists. And let’s not blame Facebook for Meakin and Walters. They’ve been like that as long as they’ve been producing news. Students are being moulded by at least two powerful forces — the role models at Channel Seven and the denaturing of privacy through Facebook and other social media. That may well be a toxic combination for journalism ethics. Let’s not say that this story represents all or even the majority of commercial television news. That’s clearly not the case. The majority of the news on Seven, Nine and Ten is straightforward news reporting. And the argument that an attack on the Campbell story is an attack on the brothers at Channel Seven is clearly ridiculous. We know the difference between reporters at a commercial station in the same way we know the difference between reporters at a newspaper. Will those at Channel Seven make dismissive noises about academics being removed from the real world? If you count all those instant Yahoo and Seven polls as any indication of the real world, then it didn’t like the Campbell story either. Now, journalism educators are not united. Two or three have made the argument that voters have the right to know the whole story about the people they’re voting for — although the argument that Campbell was not a family man was well-demolished by Jonathan Holmes during MediaWatch on Monday night. He pointed out that the former minister for transport had stayed with his wife and family for a very long time. Another couple of journalism educators have said academics need to stay distant from individual cases. But it has also reinforced what journalism educators — responsible for providing the foundations of ethical practice for generations of journalists — have known for a long time — that we are in need of a thorough re-examination of our ethical underpinnings related to privacy, particularly if journalists at universities are going to use the MEAA Code of Ethics as any kind of a guide. Students this week identified four breaches in the Campbell story, which all relate, in some way, to privacy. As Jonathan Este, spokesman for the MEAA, said yesterday, the journalists’ union hasn’t excluded anyone for a breach of the guidelines in a very long time. And the Code itself has only been rebuilt a couple of times in 60 years. “There has been some thought that in the light of digital and social media, we should look at it again,” he said. Some thought. David Boeyink, whose new book Making Hard Choices in Journalism Ethics (Routledge) was released in Australia this week, said students in the time of Facebook have a very different view of privacy. Boeyink, associate professor in the journalism school at Indiana University, said the key issue for a journalist needs to be: “What is relevant?” Two of the three issues raised by Walters in the Campbell story couldn’t stand up to scrutiny — but, says Boeyink, in the US, the question of gender preference has become very relevant to a hefty section of US voters. “But it is possible and in fact reasonable to make the distinction between one’s private life and one’s policy decisions,” he said: “We need to help students make decisions about what’s relevant and what’s not relevant — students need to deal with cases from the bottom up … they are not going to be helped by being given abstract theories. “In newsrooms, journalists need to make those decisions by focusing on the process on what’s relevant.” Chris Smyth, convenor of the ethics panel of the MEAA and head of the school of Media Communication and Culture at Murdoch, says he sees no need to reconfigure the Code of Ethics. “We are overplaying the Code,” he says. “You need a whole range of other aspects of professional life to respect the Code, to understand it and to believe it needs to be defended. Otherwise the Code on its own is just a set of ideals.” But he does say that young people are out of touch with the need for privacy because there has been a relaxation of the importance surrounding it. “There is a propensity for young people to make more of their lives public — and that’s combined with a disdain for politicians,” says Smyth. In his ethics classes, he teaches a scenario where a straight politician goes into a legal brothel — and half the students in the class say it’s perfectly OK to report on that. Rhonda Breit, program director of the masters of journalism at the University of Queensland and on the executive of the Journalism Education Association of Australia, has not signed the letter. But she says that the MEAA Code of Ethics can only provide a guide: “It can’t help people make ethical decisions.” The Campbell story reflected a moral decision on the part of Seven’s journalist Adam Walters and news director Peter Meakin, she said. “Journalists respond to instinct and practise [so-called] news values … that’s the dominant factor in determining the quality of a story. The public doesn’t necessarily understand that process … But [journalists] need to operationalise ethics in a framework which takes account of the entire moral context — not just the work environment,” she said. Would I have done this story? If I’d known, my approach might have been to try to talk to Campbell about what it might have been like to be married at 19 and then discover he was — at least — bis-xual. I reckon that’s the kind of story that might have been more instructive for the public and for reporters, for a whole range of reasons. Let Campbell make his own decision about the timing — because it’s not as if his s-xuality had anything to do with how he did his job. Jenna Price is a lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney and uses the MEAA Code of Ethics as a teaching tool. She is also a journalist who enthusiastically watches commercial television, the national broadcaster and reads tabloids and broadsheets. |
|
|
|
25 Comments
“…[journalists] need to ‘operationalise’ ethics…” operationalise???? Shame on you Rhonda Breit, program director of the masters of journalism at the University of Queensland and on the executive of the Journalism Education Association of Australia. Looks like you need some lessons in journalism yourself.
One of the reasons the media loves Facebook is that not only does it provide cover when accusations of privacy breeches arise, such as in the Campbell affair, it also provides them with excellent support for stories.
Person x is murded, kidnapped, accused of a major crime or arrested. In the past the media would try and get a photo out of the individual’s friends and family, sometimes they were successful, sometimes not.
Now however, with so many people living their life on Facebook, they have provided the media with a ready-made supply of images they can access immediately.
Depending on the angle the media outlet decides to take on the story, they will select the picture that most supports that angle. That picture of you a bit under the weather at a party or having a little too good a time, may come back to haunt you.
Something to think of the next time you are updating your images on Facebook.
“Two of the three issues raised by Walters in the Campbell story couldn’t stand up to scrutiny — but, says Boeyink, in the US, the question of gender preference has become very relevant to a hefty section of US voters.”
1. It is sexual orientation not a gender preference
2. Just because your audience is bigoted, does that give you the right to throw away the ethics handbook?
Nitpicking over, great piece. Hope to see more from you Jenna.
I count five working journalists. (Which is not to say that people don’t thinking Seven are totally pathetic.) Since when do “teachers” of journalism count at all?
I count five working journalists. (Which is not to say that people don’t think Seven are totally pathetic.) Since when do “teachers” of journalism count at all?
Teaching journalism doesn’t preclude the individuals still working as journalists. Lawrie Zion is a well established journalist, and Margaret Simons is published here at Crikey! as well as being the co-author of Malcolm Fraser’s biography.
We are living in an age where journalism is becoming democratized to the extreme and undermining the old journalism professionalism. The existence of a forum like this which is open to public comment is evidence of that the incredible openness of media sources now to comment from every section of society. But editorial control in journalism is now very difficult to establish and ethical obligations difficult to enforce.
Wow, now go after the MSM for the other lies they tell.
Helen Razer nailed it here: http://tinyurl.com/39dbqqx
What an extraordinary thing to do!
Now they suddenly have a conscience? Over this one incident?
Nothing ever been questionable before?
Unfortunately we live in a (media constructed?) world where sex and sex scandals have strong “news values” regardless of whether the so-called “scandal” has any relevance to a story. I couldn’t care less about his - or any public official’s - sex life. I thought the bigger issue in the David Campbell story should have been that he has a ministerial car! Yes, he’s entitled to it, but as NSW Transport Minister, he should take public transport with his constituents so he knows just how bad public transport is in Sydney!
@Norton Jenna Price is a working journalist. Use google before your indignant quotation marks next time.
Michael James - my breeches are made of cotton, in classic styles by King Gee and Hard Yakka. Is it possible you meant “breaches”?
Media boofheads like Peter “Booze Bus” Meakin revel in the kind of attention this incident has generated.
He would be laughing out loud to his inner circle, while being congratulated by 7 executives, for bringing 7 News into the spotlight.
The meat mincer of tabloid TV marches on regardless…laughing all the way to the bank, while the train wreck watchers tut tut and condemn.
Very sad..but true.
It’s hard to imagine anyone more sanctimonious than anonymous online commentators. Journalism educators don’t count because they aren’t or haven’t been working journalists! (Even when the reverse is true.) Journalism educators only suddenly develop a conscience over one incident. (Even when the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at UTS has been promoting public interest journalism for two decades.)
Journalism educators should now go after MSN for the other lies they tell! (Even when its US based.)
The internet empowers free speech which allows nearly everybody to check and comment on bad journalism. Sadly some online commentators repeat those same bad practices from the cover of anonymity.
Peter Meakin may be a hypocrite.
But at least we know who he is.
Journalists telling Channel 7 how they should behave is a bit like a drug dealer being a sponsor for Narcotics Anonymous.
What happened with David Campbell was a revenge trip, pure and simple.
The author/lecturer is guilty of double standards.
Would she have called the journalist’s action deplorable, had the club in question not been a homosexual club? I don’t recall journalists being called deplorable when politicians, Jim Cairns, Gareth Evans, and John Della Bosca, were reported as having extra-marital affairs.
So a journalist is deplorable if he/she exposes homosexual behaviour, but not if it is heterosexual.
There is no good reason why journalists should discriminate in favour of homosexuals.
Public figures consistently need to exercise discipline, if they wish to survive.
Long live freedom of speech.
Most journalists are just scum anyway - and the people who teach it, Jenna Price, well ethics schmethics - if the guy was running person double standards, then he basically in the same two faced field as journalists claiming public interest while trying to rack up what it takes to sell news.
And there are plenty of people in all sorts of power trips - who present a
The current tack of backing away in abhorence because it intrudes on his private and personal life - well lets see the same holier than thou’s preach their lines if he had of gotten aids “doing the beats” and given it to his wife.
No make that his PREGNANT wife…..
Oh what a bastard he would have been then.
Fooey - your all stupid pricks in the first place.
Jahm, I’m a journalism student and while you are up on your soapbox I believe that you have forgotten that journalists are the reason why you know this issue occurred, indeed journalists are the reason why this site exists. It is very easy for people to attack the journalism craft without sitting down and thinking for just one second about how important the practice of journalism is to ensure that all the checks and balances are in place. By signing this letter, it is journalists and teachers that are stating that there is a line in the sand - your argument is nonsense.
And at least we know basic grammar and spelling.
Your not a journalist - your just a “self important” wanker.
As an editorial in the Age put it, “This more than anything undermines Seven’s argument that they were acting in the public interest. They were acting in their own interest, pursuing ratings by whipping up a toxic lather of fear and loathing.”
As Crikey’s resident Scientologist, I have in the past pointed out the same thing about Channel 7’s “news” modus operandi. Pandering to a small clique of vocal anti-Scientologists in a relentless one-sided campaign of sensationalized ratings-whipping is not news, and is not in the public interest.
[Edit - You can’t say that - Mod]
Please don’t be offended by our friend Jahm’s intemperate comments. I am reliably informed that he’s a naughty nine year old who’s got the pass word to his dad’s computer. His code name, “Jahm Mitt” is clever play on words “Jam it!” (get it?) which indicates his pre-adolescent concerns about his ambiguous sexual identity.
@Gatsby: The Killer Tomato has a reputation, no doubt.
@Deccles: because it’s not something you can “teach”, like the discipline of studying history. And because the adherents are invariably failed journos with soapbax mentalities. And Lawrie is a friggin’ music critic for chrissakes.
@Fred - the only think that I’m insulted by is Jahm’s persistent poor grammar. You’re is the shortened version of ‘you are’. ‘Your’ is a pronoun. I believe you meant to use the former. Why don’t you back to primary school and leave the comments for the grown ups?