Journalethix

Governor Mark Sanford (SC-R) is a public figure.  He violated a public trust.  He broke his marriage vows.  His story needs to be reported.  South Carolina constituents and the members of the socially conservative Republican party need to know about this hypocrisy. That is not up for debate.  However, the release of personal emails between Sandford and his Argentinean lover is beyond abhorrent.  Here’s why the letters should not be published.

1. The content of the emails doesn’t make the affair and better or any worse. All the public needs to know is that an affair took place.  Releasing those letters doesn’t change any of the facts.  An affair is an affair.  He admitted it.  What kind of acts they engaged in or how he felt about her body is beside the point.  (Did we really need to know that Clinton engaged specifically in oral sex?  Either way he broke his vows and exploited his position with an intern.)  The act of the affair is public, and the public has a need to know that their governor breaks promises.  They don’t need to know the level of feeling he had toward this woman.  That is between Sanford, his lover and his wife (who does need to know all details as she decides the fate of their marriage, which is not up to the public).  Need to know: the affair occurred.  The rest follows under prurient voyeurism.  Want to know strictly.
2. The Emails were stolen. Someone hacked into these accounts.  Documents and evidence not given due process will not hold up in a court of law-they shouldn’t be admissible to the court of public opinion unless due process is followed.  Sanford’s emails will come under scrutiny as this case unfolds and state officials look into whether Sanford used state funds or resources to facilitate his affair, something he has denied.  When the emails are appropriately obtained, then they can be released, but with discretion.  The sundry details of his affections for his lover is harmful to his wife and family and not of any value to the public other than to satisfy their voyeuristic needs.

Journalism gets a bad wrap for being smarmy and slimy for reasons such as this.  I hope eventually we will get to a place where we don’t just print anything that comes to us unless there is a compelling news reason to do so and the ethics surrounding their receipt were noble.  And I’m not thinking of Sanford here.  I don’t think we owe him anything.  I’m thinking of his family, and any precedents stemming from just printing emails just because we can.

Copyright David R. Norton 2009

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

Google is seeking to reinvent the email experience with Google Wave, purported to be a mixture of Twitter, Facebook, FriendFinder, Gmail, and Flickr all in one service.  Essentiall, it’s email in realtime.  A running conversation that is not completely public and not completely private.  An article by CNET is provided here.  And isn’t that the Internet in a nutshell?