Part 1
CASE 7-F
Micro
2.
The actual loss of credibility is unequivocally as disastrous as the
reporters felt. Just because the public does not have degrees journalism, doesn't
mean they can't have any rudimentary sensibilities about how the journalism
field should work. I don't hold a degree in nursing or athletic training, but I
know that if somebody should suffer some sort of muscle strain that they should
apply ice to it, rest, and take ibuprofen if they are not allergic to it. For
the most part, people can tell the difference between right and wrong in other
people's professions. Yes, sports events are considered entertainment, but the
idea that good journalism can’t come from sports journalists is insulting. Newspapers
and magazines were once independent companies that didn't fall under the
umbrella of a massive conglomeration, during these times reporters were more respected
and thought to write with less perceived bias than they are now. It is worse
for reporters who now report for the team that shares ownership with the
television, newspaper, magazine company they are owned by. If I were to work at
SNY, and report on the New York Mets I
would immediately have my credibility questioned because the same people that
own SNY, are the owners of the New
York Mets. This is similar to how reporters from the Times felt when they were told of the business details between the Times and the Staples Center.
3.
The difference between receiving cash incentives for writing versus
receiving free tickets from the sports department to report on the game is less
of a slippery slope than you would think. The sports department distributes press
tickets to people other than journalists required to cover the teams in their
local papers. Staying with the Mets, as an example, they will give tickets to
the reporters that work at the New York papers, but they will also give tickets
to the journalists who have to cover the teams the Mets are playing. They will
even give tickets to journalists the Mets are rivals with even if they are not
playing on that day or night. The idea is to allow for many different people to
gather facts and report on it far and wide. If the public thinks that these
journalists who receive free tickets get to sit in comfortable seating really
close to the field, they are mistaken. Sports journalists show up hours before
the game, and often stay hours after the game to ensure they meet their
deadlines. It's very different than receiving cash payments using business
legalese that many people will not understand.
Midrange
1. The
idea of "the wall" somehow affecting advocacy journalism in a
negative way isn't as complicated as the text makes it seem. There are very
intelligent people out there who thrive as journalists and the shrewd business decisions,
and vice versa. If a multinational corporation owns a publishing company as
well as a sports franchise, they more than likely have enough money to hire
consultants. These consultants should be retired businessman and retired
journalists that are hired on the recommendations by the parties on each side
of “the wall.” These consultants only job is to make sure that each side is doing
their job properly and only receiving information pertinent to their side of
the wall, there will not be any lies of omission like there were in the Times case.
Macro
1. As
long as unbiased journalists want to be paid for their work, and businesses are
allowed to own publication companies as a part of an oligopoly, there will always
be a need for "the wall." The main job of "the wall" is to
keep journalists from chasing stories and reporting things that are only good
for the bottom line on the business side. If a journalist is hired by SNY, and
is okay with shilling for them by only publishing positive stories on the Mets,
then there is no need for "the wall." It is my hope that there will
always be ethical journalists who report on all sides of the story, and will
insist on keeping a study “wall” upright.
Part 2
Last
week we discussed a couple of topics that have garnered a lot of media
attention in the past few weeks, and one topic that has bothered me for quite
some time. The topic of the paparazzi and their behavior around the children of
famous people is a "job" that is reprehensible to me. And while the
focus of this discussion was on the famous people's children, I think that a
job that requires you to follow people in order to take candid shots of them
can be highly unethical. In chapter 5 Patterson goes over ethics in photojournalism
as they relate to what to photographers take pictures of in the wake of
tragedies. One of the passages that Patterson uses in chapter 5 struck a chord
with me. "Goffman (1959) claims people possess several ‘territories’ they
have a right to control. Included in Goffman's list are the right to a personal space free from intrusion
(i.e., by a camera lens) and the right to preserve one's ‘information,’ such as
a state of joy, or grief, from public view (p. 190)." This can easily be
applied to the times when stars have their children with them while running
some errands. Garry Bryant's checklist is even more appropriate because most of
these moments that the paparazzi are capturing:
1. Should not be made public.
2. Could send the child and
mother into further trauma.
3. Are most definitely not
photographed from the least obtrusive distance possible, and
4. Are not acting with
compassion and sensitivity when chasing these stars around. (p. 190).
The people that employ photographers to follow
celebrities around and harass them need to stop. There is nothing I want less
than some innocent bystander to die because a member of the paparazzi decided
to engage in a high-speed
pursuit to find out what B-list celebrity got at Starbucks, nor is there
any reason for them to place their cameras on the ground and shoot up, into car
doors to make sure female stars are wearing
proper undergarments. There are times and places to photograph celebrities
and their children. Sadly, the people that pay them to do this don't understand
that.
I was repeatedly told at a young
age that "the only things that are certain are death, and taxes." I
would like to amend that to "the only things that are certain are death, taxes,
and that nobody likes a cheater." I'm fully aware that sports are
considered entertainment. I would, however, like to point out that people work their
entire lives to become successful athletes, and win as many accolades as they
can without being accused of being cheaters, or being on a team that is accused
of cheating. Do I believe Belichick has no idea whether these balls were tampered
with? No. He was already caught trying to gain an advantage once. Everybody
from Robert Kraft on down in the Patriots organization lost the opportunity to
be given the benefit of the doubt because of Spygate. The organization is no
better than Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Lance Armstrong, Roger Clemens, or
Marion Jones who all tried to gain an illegal and unethical edge to best their opponents
by breaking the rules. The only way they will get any type of defense from me
is if the ways to uncover their cheating was done by an illegal and
unethical search. The only problem
is that it probably wasn't the first time you
cheated.
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