Do you think journalists are good people? Probably not, if you watch TV.
In the media, journalists are portrayed as nosey and rude. Even if they’re asking questions everyone is curious about, most of us are trained to “mind our own business.” Even friends and loved ones who have accompanied me to interviews are shocked.
“Lauren, was it really polite to ask that man how much money he makes?” they say.
Perhaps not. But my job isn’t about being “polite.” It’s about telling the public what it needs to know. If that source had declined my question, I wasn’t going to press him. But as every journalist knows, if you don’t ask the question in the first place, you’ll never get an answer.
The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics states:
“Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy.”
This is where journalists can get it wrong. It’s up to the individual reporter to decide just what constitutes an “overriding public need” big enough to outweigh a person’s privacy.
A lot of people think that Newsweek didn’t have a good reason to expose Satoshi Nakamoto’s private life, especially when there’s still doubt about whether he’s the real inventor of Bitcoin. Likewise, some people criticized Gawker for unmasking an infamous Reddit troll, compromising his privacy for no other reason than that it was interesting. The gray area comes from not knowing whether “public interest” counts as “public need.”
In my upcoming book, I wrote a whole chapter on ethical journalism, especially in fandom reporting. My hypothesis is that people only notice when we get it wrong, and when they do, they assume we’re trying to get better ratings by publishing lies. This is at the heart of the journalism profession’s slimy reputation.
I’m no angel myself, and my readers rightfully call me out each time I make a mistake. But it’s not that journalists are an especially unethical group. It’s that journalism contains an ethical gray area that few professions do. And each time a journalist begins a new article, sometimes several times a day, she has to reconsider her ethical obligations anew.
Read next:
Corruption, scandal, and fandom journalism
A definition of ethics in fandom journalism
Screenshot of my favorite unethical journalist, Niko Ohno, from Engaged to the Unidentified.
9 Comments.
I might be completely wrong about this, but being a journalist is extremely tough because almost all of your work is presented to the public, and thus receives public criticism. If my work was done in the public eye I would imagine that I would also receive positive and negative criticism on everything I did as well. We have people who come in and review the work I do, and I always hate that, so having that everyday from everyone in the world is something I definitely would not be cut out for.
Do you think that some of the reason people respect NPR more then say CNN or FOX is because that there funding source is independent (mostly) of viewership, and advertising revenue? As in they don’t need to “sensationalize” the news to attract viewers.
I believe the move to the internet in the 90’s has made the public more aware of how the Media business model works (with advertising being more talked about and more transparent). It’s always been about ads, but maybe people were less perceptive to that because of the way the news was delivered before.
Additional question, do you think that journalism and the news in general is going to become more fractured (more “biased” news sources and more “click bait”) due to the internet and rise of bloggers? I am worried about a future where people are not exposed to alternative viewpoints due to the internet (and media as a whole) warping itself to “better serve you” (read as “tell you what you want to hear”).
Wow, honey, it’s been a long time since you commented here! (Remember when you were the only commenter?)
I don’t think the move to the Internet has actually done much at all to change public awareness of journalism. I always thought that “this is the worst time to get into journalism” etc. but there have NEVER been good old days for journalism. It’s always been cutthroat, low pay, dependent on ads, and the people who are best at it don’t always get the most recognition.
But I do agree there’s something to be said for being in the public eye. It’s why people can be so rude to people who work in the service industry. But journalism is a double threat because journalists don’t just work in the public eye, they bring other people into the public eye, too. What if the Washington Post did a profile on how you do your job? Then you’d be subject to just as much criticism for a bit as journalists are most of the time.
Re: “sensationalism,” my boss once said, “Why is sensationalism a bad thing? We should only report on sensational things.” I may be slightly misquoting him, but the reason journalists choose some things to report on and ignore other things is because the selected things are interesting, timely, relevant, and important to know (and here we get into the same problem, because that’s ACCORDING TO THE JOURNALIST/news outlet). Although today’s Upworthy style clickbait is less “newsworthy” and more “we think you’ll read it.” Whenever readers accuse me of sensationalism I want to say, “Listen, if I really wanted your clicks, I would write only about cat videos, all of the time.”
I never really thought that journalism was an unethical career. A lot of things are portrayed differently in media than how they really are, so I don’t think it’s safe to trust it for things like this. Still, I can see how people can get that idea after being exposed to it time after time…
And like you wrote, people tend to only look at the bad. Just because it’s not their work, they expect it to be perfect. Nobody is perfect, though, and there are bound to be mistakes.
I imagine it must be tough to be part of a career that involves so much social criticism. There must be a lot of pressure not to mess up even the slightest. =/
The newsweek “exposure” seemed like really bad research, -make that guess-, that involving finding a “S. Nakamoto” that was good at math. And then drumming it up like it was fact.
As far as ViolentAcrez, he wasn’t just a troll, it was who he was. It was what he did, every day, all day. So many tears for a violent racist misogynist anti-Semite underage upskirter’s “harassment”. HE was harassed? Free speech? Yep he is free to say it. Now he’s free to take credit for it too. He made the world a worse place intentionally; because he found it “fun”.
Really sick of dudes with privilege crying about the end of free speech when people point out they are terrible hateful people. They are still talking aren’t they?
@Kaldar5, Sure, ViolentAcrez liked to exploit underage girls and make racist jokes, but one thing that can’t be disputed is that if it weren’t for one journalist doing research and then publishing the results of that research, he would still have a job today. It’s easy to say people like him deserve it, but that’s where it starts to get blurry – is it OK to pseudonymous people online if there’s an interesting story in it? Even if you go to ViolentAcrez’s wikipedia page and the “talk page,” you see people debating whether the expose is OK.
And if he never said those things, he would still have a job.
And if Reddit wasn’t enabling him, he would still have a job.
He was doing this for years, being a hateful person, posting illegal content, offending anyone and everyone he could think of. He was bound to be exposed eventually. His great shock at what happened just goes to show how little he thought about his actions and their impact.
He was a “public figure” as the legal definition – that was also anonymous. Weird to be both, but I think it applies. Like a public figure, he affected thousands, was widely known, had a large scale (terribly detrimental) effect on society by his own choice.
Personally I think the ideal for journalism is to improve society through knowledge and awareness. In this case, Mission accomplished.
The reason why Journalism is a rare act online is because there is no such thing as “responsible writing” due to what most people call as “freedom of speech”.
The worst part? The public thinks that it directly relates with activism which I definitely hate especially in the otaku/anime/cosplay niche. Too many people are being too defensive for something that needs to get out.
Journalism still works on paper though. That kind of direct but interesting approach is something that even a digital e-book will never remove. Sadly, it’s not always the case for anything written online. It’s just a popularity contest these days.
Journalists claim to be working in the public interest – but are they accountable to the public?
If I think a journalist is doing a bad job, can I do anything effective about it? Probably not.
Journalists are perceived as having power over the public without accountability to the public.
Journalists can always be criticized. If a journalist doesn’t upset the apple cart, he gets slammed as a worthless lump – e.g. Andy Rooney. If a journalist does upset the apple cart, he gets slammed as an egomaniac – e.g. Julian Assange.
Also, media organizations are often hated. Even if the individual reporter is a good person, the company that employs that person might be widely hated.
Glenn Greenwald might be turning the tide and making journalism popular again. Time will tell.
I don’t agree with the writer of this article. It seems to be written with missing facts. Journalist many times attempt to influence election outcomes. Much more complicated than nosey or rude. I don’t care about whom they interview. Most journalist today do not have journalistic integrity in their job resume. They simply don’t. The minute that they get a blog or write page 18 on a current rag, they know that they can influence peoples brains especially liberals. It’s super wrong for our country to allow it any more. When journalist write articles like “She has a clone at the Emmys” or further taking the election process to hell with more “I hate Trump stories” Lets gets this straight. Those articles do not help the American people learn about current issues. Journalist attempt to manipulate how you see things. What’s current. I am sure bloggers who think the net is super popular aren’t going to write a fair story. They don’t want to. You give them everything they want.
Empty open time with nothing to do. Sorry. I am sure the minute a blogger or web master finds out that educated people aren’t so easy with issues, they get furious. They’re liberals with agendas. The truth.