When covering natural disasters, journalists are faced with many legal and ethical challenges. This makes it difficult to report on certain aspects of the event, though it remains in the public’s interest to be informed. These ethical dilemmas are complex and reflect highly on the publisher’s moral compass. With the recent tragedy of Cyclone Debbie, it is evident where the key laws and ethical frameworks were adopted when writing tasteful and informative news regardless of surrounding pressure.
A key barrier journalists face when covering natural disasters is the inability to access the site. Muller (2010) highlights the ethical and legal boundaries that journalists are challenged with as they are faced with the decision to either follow authorities orders,
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It is difficult for journalists to sift through an overload of information and ensure what they publish is not too distressing for the public. Decent and tasteful reporting is critical, especially when concerning the death of civilians. A lot of sensitivity surrounds the matter and journalists need to ensure they do not disclose any information the police have not already released to the public or families involved. To ensure this, victim’s names must be disclosed until the families have been notified and give permission. This would have been difficult when covering Cyclone Debbie, as journalists must communicate with authorities to know what information has been released to avoid an unethical report.
Natural disasters pose many complex ethical and legal challenges for journalists. It is critical to adopt an ethical framework to ensure the content published is tasteful and in the best interest of the public. By applying key laws and ethical thinking, the journalist can safely cover an event with authentic and informative reporting that does not breach the law or well-being of
Cyclone Debbie had a huge impact on thousands of people as many had to leave their homes and seek a safe shelter. It was believed that around 25,000 people had to get evacuated from low-lying Mackay. These residents were urged to seek shelter at Rockhampton. Social impact includes loss of life and livelihood, damage to crops which leads to food being harder to get, this will then increase price of food, damage to education and many other services like public transport, increased cost and pressure on governments to rebuild destroyed facilities and infrastructure and all money put away for other projects or investments must now be used to
On Aug 30, 2017 a extremely powerful hurricane formed in the Atlantic as a category 2 hurricane. As days past the large gust and wind and rain turn from a category 2 to a category 3 hurricane and as days past it fluctuated between a category 2 to a 3 back to a 2. On September 4, 2017 that was the day everyone in the state of Florida became very in tune to make sure we were ready for a category 5 hurricane. Looking at the news as they played out every scenario as to where this storm would head was miserable. I never had so many sleepless nights. As the days past of stocking up on water, Non-perishable foods, flashlight candles, gas. In preparation for the
In today’s day and age, mass media has completely changed the way in which we consume news. The truthfulness of the millions of blogs and web pages makes it hard to trust what is true and what is not. Newspapers are often an overlooked form of news, which is surprising considering that it is a accurate, curated source of media. What sets newspapers apart from all the countless blogs and web pages is the set of ethics that the reporters and editors are required to follow. In State of Play Cal McCaffrey, a reporter for the Washington Globe, did not act in accordance to the code of ethics. McCaffrey knowingly broke the law whilst trespassing, clearly knew McCaffrey had a conflict of interest, and unethically recorded someone while falsely promising anonymity.
"Journalistic Objectivity in Media Risk Debates: Challenges & Opportunities." Clarion: International Multidisciplinary Journal, vol. 5, no. 1, Feb. 2016, pp. 91-97. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5958/2277-937X.2016.00013.7. Wilson-Smith, Anthony. "The False Truth of Objectivity.
Thussu (1998) said that it is a journalists duty to explain the information they were providing and not “indulge in cheap ‘event journalism.’
The issue of journalistic ethics is examined in Janet Malcolm’s work The Journalist and the Murderer. This work stresses the importance of exercising good moral and ethic judgment. Janet Malcolm is very direct in her opinion on this “standard procedure” journalist use on their subjects to write a story. “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally in defensible.” For the sake of telling a good, profitable story, journalist will sometimes recreate their subject in order to make their work more interesting. Malcolm is clear in her book that this is unethical.
It appears that this moral dilemma, rather to intervene in a life-threatening events is not obvious to most journalists and photographers. Past events have brought the need to add the rescue clause to the charter of journalistic ethics, which gives a priority for assisting casualties over the journalistic task. In my opinion, a news reporter must intervene in the case of a life threatening event as a part of his moral duties as a human being.
Finally, under your Reckless Reporting category in your article, I understand that reporters have to stay close but far from the source—in this case, the water and debris—in order to get a good writing page down. Gathering information should not be as hard for you to have to rely on news sources to write your own article and journals. Powerful stories should bring the readers in, likewise as to newscasts. When showing stories of the victims, it shows (and tells) how much information you got, how well you presented it, and finally, how determined you were to find great research to tell the world about.
The field of journalism is a necessity because there is always a story to narrate, and ultimately history that needs to be documented. Many fail to recognize the importance of journalist, their roles to communities nationwide and the life threatening risks the job may acquire. We often perceive the pros of journalism which is a good thing, but we tend to neglect what journalists may have to undergo to acquire the right facts and different parts of an important story. Journalists around the world have encountered dangerous moments in their careers where they had to report on stories that demanded integrating themselves into a threatening situation such as war. This statement definitely holds true to Journalism in Liberia during the civil war.
This paper’s main focus is to answer the question: “What guidance have the courts offered to help determine the point at which a journalist wrongly goes beyond reporting newsworthy information, instead reporting private, embarrassing facts that invade a person’s privacy?” To answer this question, history of the legal system, Supreme Court and past precedents must be understood and taken into consideration. The definition of privacy as well as its history in regards to its relationship with news and journalism must be understood. To do so, many Supreme Court cases will have to be taken into consideration, such as Galella v. Onassis, Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, Florida Star v. B.J.F. and Wilson v. Layne. To better understand the future, past cases will be crucial to be studied and acknowledged.
When there is a disaster like this, the media expects a lot of looting, lack of response to the disaster, victims in need of rescue, and even death. But if the media
Journalists (reporters) should just observe news events as they happen; they should not interfere in any way. I agree on most parts with this statement and disagree on some. The reporters are at the event to report them. For example, the wild fires in Gatlinburg, it is the reporters job to get the information out to the people watching the channel, and should not interfere. The firefighters and other professionals will handle it. The reporters could help in a way. If a reporter was to interfere or offer help, they could tell others if a person needs help if they are trapped in wreckage due to a disaster. The main priority for the reporter is to get the information and give it to
The article "A Pressing Need For Ethics" by Aviv Lavie deals with the dilemma: if a rescue clause should be added to the journalism code of ethics or not. The rescue clause in question states that the duty to assist casualties is more important than accomplishing the journalistic job. This dilemma, which deals with an essential question of ethics, aroused differences of opinions among the Israeli journalists, and exposed the complexity they face especially when dealing with events connected to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. In my opinion the rescue clause shouldn't be added. First, in a country such as Israel where the media mostly covers events connected to the Israeli Palestinian issue, neutrality is essential.
The analysis in this report will include a summary of the sequence of events leading up to the disaster, analysis of the professional ethical behaviours and responsibilities that were
While investigative journalism used to be associated with lone reporters working on their own with little, if any, support from their news organizations, recent examples attest that teamwork is fundamental. Differing kinds of expertise are needed to produce well-documented and comprehensive stories. Reporters, editors, legal specialists, statistical analysts, librarians, and news researchers are needed to collaborate on investigations. Knowledge of public information access laws is crucial to find what information is potentially available under "freedom of information" laws, and what legal problems might arise when damaging information is published. New technologies are extremely valuable to find facts and to make reporters familiar with the complexities of any given story. Thanks to the computerization of government records and the availability of extraordinary amounts of information online, computer-assisted reporting (CAR)