Not very many people are going to argue that humans haven’t always held a morbid fascination to crime and tragedy. Perhaps it's because we’re lucky enough not to have it feature so prominently in our own lives, or because from early age we’ve been told to consider it edgy and exciting.
Putting the human psychology and bizarreness of it all aside we often see this reflected in our news, selected by journalists, as gatekeepers to reflect what they believe it is that society would regard most relevant and interesting for consumption. As we’ve discussed in previous blogs the survival of news companies now skates on thin ice, making it even more imperative to one-up competition and bring in the biggest audiences, often achieved by the use of new technologies and more compelling gritty stories.
One thing journalists can’t afford to forget however is that behind those career making, dollar generating, tragedy stories are not fictional characters but rather members of our community. Traditional media has always had a clear line when it comes to privacy, especially in speaking with victims to obtain information and giving them space as is reflected clearly in rule 11 of the Media Alliance Code of Ethics. But how have these well-established rules been altered with the introduction of the many tools of the internet?
Google maps, for example will allow journalists to release to the public pictures of where a crime was committed or the home of a deceased. Facebook, a further example of where a journalist can access and obtain pictures and information about a potential criminal or victim.
These issues are now beyond hypotheticals for a rainy day, in fact as journalists have already begun to utillise technology to arguably invade personal grief an example of which manifested itself just last week in the death of 14-year-old Sidonie Thomson.
Sidonie Thomson a grade 10 student was allegedly murdered by her mother at their house in Paddington. Following this Mrs Patterson commit suicide by jumping off the Story Bridge to her death while her 12-year-old son was left in her car.
Obviously this was a big local story and one we, as the local community felt we needed to hear about with the immediacy we’ve come to expect from our online news. The question we have to ask ourselves though is just what rights to privacy we are willing to compromise so we can consume a prettier multi-layered story with pictures and graphics?
Sure having the ability to construct timelines, put in Youtube clips, access Facebook pictures and information and embed Google maps is all useful and makes for a more in depth consumer experience but should more rules be put in place to make sure these features are not abused by journalists as a new means of circumventing the requirement to respect the private grief of families to get the scoop?
Is accessing someones online Facebook page and using a pictures or taking footage of someone’s house in reality as bad as breaking in and stealing a photo.
In last weeks case journalists identified Sidonie from her Facebook page and used her pictures assumably without the consent of her father to accompany stories about her demise.
The argument is that when a page is set to public it implies it may be accessed and used accordingly. But in context such as this is this really ethical? Putting aside the number of photos on Facebook that I personally wouldn’t want put into public circulation (I’m sure most other people feel the same way) a journalist allowing grieving family the time to select a picture of the deceased they like, to influence how that person will be portrayed to the public, is something that has been shown to be beneficial in giving them some kind of control over an upsetting and confusing time.
It shows respect to the deceased and to the family and friends which is what true effective journalists should prioritise. For this reason I would disagree with Facebook being used as a source of information and for pictures and believe that regardless of privacy settings journalists should still approach family (at respectful time and through respectful means) and allow them to provide with photos.
While a journalist might be able to argue that the release of a picture of a victim might be consistent with their duties to the public interest I think it would be far harder to justify the imbedding of a Google map of the outside of a victims house as was done by the Courier Mail to Sidonie’s house. I don’t understand how this would contribute to the quality of the story nor its background and strikes me as only being there to satisfy the morbid curiosity of consumers. Even if it’s less physically intrusive I would suggest that this still does breach the privacy of the family.
Should the code be amended to consider the ethical conduct of journalists in light of these news tools? Journalists must continue to reflect and apply ethics when using these new technologies. An excellent example of such reflection is seen in this article from the Poynter institute.
I don’t think these technologies should be used just because journalists now have access to them nor can they forget their ethical code to respect the privacy and grief of the public still exists despite these shiny new toys.
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