Journalethix

Her name has been on the tounges and message boards of billions around the world. In less than 24 hours, the woman known only as Neda has become the face of a revolution, her death the singular image plucked from millions who have made their support for the opposition in Iran known through the social media soup of blogs, tweets and Facebook posts. The death of Neda will become a “flashbulb” moment for this period in history through its broadcast through social media—a medium that ironically has been credited with destroying the phenomenon of the global shared experience. Neda’s name will be remembered long beyond social media’s fifteen minutes of fame. Indeed, the media has treated the death and life (in that order) of Neda with respect, admiration, and utmost sympathy, as they should. There is no other angle here. She is a victim, plain and simple, who was killed for attempting to voice an opinion. However, what is interesting and perhaps ethically ambiguous, is the decision of the media to show Neda’s face at the moment of death. And indeed, news giant CNN did wrestle with whether or not to show her face.  At 10:30 am ET on June 22, the network blurred Neda’s face.  At 11:40 am ET, they showed her face in full detail down to the haunting image of her lifeless eyes as they stared vacantly at her father as he pleaded for her to hang on.  (I will not show the video here because of ethical concerns).

The moment of death is an intensely private moment.  Often networks and newspapers will run photos and videos of the moments just before death: we see the victim’s face, the circumstances just before the event (an explosion, a gunshot), but the feed usually cuts there.  The media shows closed caskets, but rarely is the face of the dead broadcast.  Even iconic war photographs such as Eddie Adams’s photo of the excecution of a Vietcong or Robert Capa’s image of a slain Spanish Civil War soldier dying just before he hits the ground race to the line but don’t seem to cross it.  Death is personal; and if one is going to show such images, there better be a compelling reason to do so, especially if permission of the family or will of the deceased have not been consulted, as is the case with Neda, whose moment was captured by a stranger with a camera phone and disseminated by organizations she might never have heard of.

Objectivity in journalism is myth, but the practice of striving for fairness is a very real and serious pursuit.  As more and more details emerge about the likely fraud that took place in Iran during its most recent presidential election, a call to action (similar to the action taken by American newspapers when they endorse a candidate) is sometimes necessary.  Neda most certainly was a private citizen who endured and intensely private moment which by fate was made public.  Her story most certainly needs to be told, but given the seriousness of this most recent conflict, perhaps her face also needs to be seen.  Let’s hope her life, death, and image were not used in vain.

Copyright David R. Norton 2009

The reigning government in Iran recently just upped the anti as Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s highest ruler, condemned the election protests, declared Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner, and accused the U.S. and other western states of “meddling” in Iran’s affairs.  However, the U.S., in an official sense, has done no such thing.  The U.S. media, on the otherhand, has definitely taken a stand in the developments in Iran, and it appears, a side.  While the media has entertained the possibility that the election might be legitimate, the overwhelming majority of coverage has been toward the protests and the assumption that the results were rigged.  Even social networking sites, such as Twitter , which have been the focus of media coverage, have by proxy of user generated apps allowed users to voice support for the protests by a myriad of means, even turning icons and avatars green.  The Obama Administration, on the other hand, has only expressed “concerns” that violence is not demonstrated toward “peaceful protesters”, which says nothing about support one way or the other for either presidential candidate.

One of the hallmarks of journalism is its commitment to strive to eliminate bias wherever possible.  However, as CNN Chief International Correspondant Christiane Amanpour said of objectivity in response to her coverage of the Bosnian crisis in the 1990s: “objectivity doesn’t mean treating all sides equally.  It means giving each side a hearing.”  In some cases, where voter disenfranchisement has been all but confirmed (and judging by the outcry in Iran and the evidence on social networking sites, it is obvious that something has gone awry), it is the job of the journalist to pursue truth and cry foul when the available evidence points to the obvious.  And often that means “meddling” or simply telling the story and getting the facts.  Journalists have given both sides a hearing here-covering Ayatollah Kohmeini’s stance on the issue as well as broadcasting Hossein Mousavi’s statements in addition to the statements and views of the protetors.  And I would argue the ratio of incumbant coverage to protest coverage is directly proportional to the willingness of each side of the issue to talk; and the public, through Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, have clearly voiced which side they are on.

Far from meddling, U.S. journalists are merely doing their job, reporting what they know from the people willing to talk to them.  And even if they were being proactive in espousing one side over the other (and U.S. newspapers do it all the time by endorsing candidates in our own elections), sometimes the ethical thing is to take a side when the subject is of unusual and often global importance.  And espousing democracy over a dictatorship is the ethical thing to do.

Copyright David R. Norton 2009