All posts by ethicsadviceline

Olympic Tears

Compassion, ,

By Casey Bukro

Olympic skier Bode Miller cried as NBC’s Christin Cooper interviewed him, asking him a string of questions about the influence Miller’s dead brother might have had on the skier’s bronze metal performance in the race he had just finished.

Midway through the interview, tears streaming down his face, stammering at times, Miller bowed his helmeted head and fell silent. Cooper placed a hand on Miller’s arm and said: “Sorry.”

The media and the world in general have come down hard on Cooper,  a former Olympic skier herself in the 1984 games, for “pushing too hard” in the Miller interview.

In the aftermath of this furor, Miller proved to be a class act. He tweeted, “please be gentle w christen cooper, it was crazy emotional and not at all her fault.” In another tweet, he said “she asked questions that every interviewer would have, pushing is part of it, she wasn’t trying to cause pain.”

Miller has a point. It is the nature of television to go for the visual and the emotional. Cooper noted that Miller looked to the sky moments before starting his medal-winning Alpine Super-G run, implying he might be thinking about his brother Chelone, who died at the age of 29 last year after suffering a seizure. Miller said later there was some truth to that.

Cooper is one of those attractive sport figures turned broadcasters. Without a background in professional journalism, there is reason to believe Cooper simply does not understand or did not have the depth of experience to learn how far to go. She is co-founder of a restaurant in Bozeman, Montana.

There are boundaries in good taste and ethics that professional journalists learn to recognize, or should learn to recognize.

At least credit Cooper for saying “sorry,” perhaps moved by seeing how emotionally distraught Miller became by her questions about Chelone.

Television puts attractive but nonprofessional commentators in sensitive situations at its own peril. That might be one of the lessons of the Sochi Olympics in Russia.

Although much of the criticism rained down on Cooper, nothing was said about the excessive time NBC’s camera followed Miller after he walked away from Cooper, then slumped down weeping against a low wall until his wife came to comfort him. It was too much.

The Cooper interview has been timed by the New York Times at 75 seconds. But the camera lingered on Miller far longer after he ended the interview by walking away.  At that point, the interview was over. Miller should have been left alone in his private grief, instead of being hounded by the camera.

Maybe it was NBC’s idea of good TV, but it was  a bad way to treat a human being.

Pictures Worth A Thousand Touch-Ups

Accountability, Fabrication, Media, Photos, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By Casey Bukro

Let’s start with a hoary cliche: A picture is worth a thousand words.

Why?

Think of photos that stick in your mind:  The Hindenburg zeppelin wrapped in flames; dead soldiers at the Battle of Gettysburg; Robert Capa’s D-Day Invasion images; the Iwo Jima flag-raising by Joe Rosenthal; the Beatles; Muhammad Ali; Marilyn Monroe; Elizabeth Taylor; that Afghan girl with haunting eyes in National Geographic; Einstein and Picasso, to name a few.

They are iconic images, in part because they are believed to be accurate portrayals of people and events. Some of those people are famous because they are so photogenic. You want to stare at them.

That makes the relationship between photographers and their audience important, especially now when pictures are vital to covering the news, and when technology makes it so easy to alter images.

It was not considered a big deal a decade or more ago. But now it is, because accuracy in photography is seen as important as accuracy in reporting.

That point was made by the Associated Press when it cut ties with Pulitzer prize-winning freelance photographer Narciso Contreras for altering a picture. He admitted that he edited out a video camera from the bottom left corner of a photo of a fighter holding a rifle.

The Guardian said the “sacking” seemed “very draconian.”

The Associated Press did not think so.  Brian Schwaner, AP bureau chief in New Orleans, said:

 ” AP is quite strict on its requirements for unaltered material, even photos of only marginal value. For example, a few weeks ago the flack for a political candidate sent us a rather standard mugshot for our files, for use during the election. Our bureau photographer took a look at it and was suspicious. After running some tests, he discovered it had been heavily PhotoShopped. The flack was informed and we rejected the photo.

            “So the scrutiny ranges from the basics – like this simple mugshot – all the way up to celeb shots and battlefield photos.”
That’s the way it’s done these days, although, ironically, it’s a time when news organizations cut their photo staffs as a cost-saving measure. That means more reliance on freelancers. Contreras was a freelancer, and maybe that’s part of the message.

Television’s Panhandlers

Independence, , , , ,

By Casey Bukro

If you wonder if some journalists are clueless about ethics, consider Susanna Negovan.

Negovan appeared as a freelance contributor on “Good Day Chicago,”  reporting how she attended with her husband a lavish private party in Chicago  for customers of Tiffany & Co. who had spent a million dollars or more on jewelry.

“I had black cod. My husband had filet mignon,” she said. “We probably each had a thousand dollars in wine and champagne.”

Showing a video of herself trying on a $750,000 bracelet, Negovan added: “I was hoping they would let me keep it.” (Okay, this had to be a joke. She can’t be that clueless. But you have to wonder about her smarts for even saying that on live television.)

Nevogan’s enthusiasm reached a peak when she said: “Before the party, it was so cool, they dropped off gifts for me!” including a Tiffany crystal bud vase.

It was a bravura performance in “gimme-gimme.”

Negovan’s full-time job is publisher and editor of Splash, an arts and entertainment supplement published by Sun-Times Media.  The segment in which she appeared was dubbed the “Tiffany Diamond Party” by Fox Chicago, WFLD Channel 32.

The “piece was over the top by any standard,” reported Robert Feder, who has covered the media beat in Chicago since 1980. He called it “more brazen and more obnoxious than anything she’d ever done before. And that’s saying a lot.”

AdviceLine asked Negovan how she responded to Feder’s accusations that she accepted freebies from a company she covers, but she did not reply. Negovan reportedly did not keep the gifts after Feder’s revelations.

The incident was more blatant than usual, but continues a long tradition of Chicago television anchors and others gorging themselves on air with food sent by merchants, or accepting gifts. There is no evidence these TV celebrities pay for any of this stuff, though many of them earn salaries in the six figures or more.

After a segment on Chicago hotdogs, a WGN-TV Channel 9 weather man on air wondered why the hot dog vender failed to send “samples.”

It’s shameful when a well-paid weatherman begs for food on television.

But it did not end there. A few days later,  on October 22, 2013, Mark Suppelsa, a WGN -TV anchor, looked directly into the camera and, with a big grin, said: “We like you better when you bring us free stuff,” after getting a box of Cracker Jack from a reporter.

It’s common to hear television anchors offering thanks for “sending that over,” referring to things like free pizza or other food or drinks. Don’t they know that makes them look cheap?

Journalists are supposed to be representatives of the people. What are the chances for the rest of us getting free pizza or hot dogs?

The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics says “refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment….if they compromise journalistic integrity.”

Journalists can stuff themselves on air if they think that’s newsworthy, but at least make an effort to pay for the food like the rest of us.

This might seem like a small point. But it comes at a time when the Gallup Poll released new findings showing that the honesty and ethics rating of journalists continues to slide.

Gallup has asked Americans to rate the honesty and ethical standards of various professions since 1976. A December 5-8, 2013 poll found that 20 percent of Americans rated TV reporters as high or very high in honesty and ethical standards. Twenty-one percent ranked newspaper reporters high or very high.

By comparison, back in 1981, Gallup found that 32 percent of Americans believed that journalists in general ranked high or very high in honesty or ethical standards. That ranking has been falling ever since.

It can’t help confidence in journalists for Americans to see TV freeloaders begging for food and gifts.

Ombudsmen a Global Growth Industry

Accountability, Compassion, Juveniles, Media, Photos, , , , , ,

By Casey Bukro

The Washington Post’s decision early this year to dump its ombudsman got a lot of attention, but a global growth in the ranks of ombudsmen as a step toward development has gone largely unnoticed.

“This growth reflects a belief in young or fragile democracies that strong media play a critical role in development,” reports “themediaonline,” most notably in Latin America.

“Themediaonline” report was based on “Giving the Public a Say: How News Ombudsmen Ensure Accountability, Build Trust and Add Value to Media Organizations” It was published by fesmedia Africa, a media project of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Namibia, Africa. FES is a nongovernment, nonprofit foundation that promotes democratization and good governance.

An Argentine academic said the work of ombudsmen “demands our attention.”

In Africa, according to the report, ombudsmen organizations play an important role in fending off government interference. Instead of working for news media, ombudsmen in other parts of the world might operate as voluntary associations.

Africa has become a hotbed of ombudsman activity.

Complaints to a press ombudsman in the Johannesburg area jumped 224 percent since 2009, according to a report at the South Africa Editors’ Forum at Umhlanga, Africa.

Johan Retief, deputy press ombudsman of Print Media South Africa, said his organization received 151 complaints from aggrieved newspaper readers and newsmakers in 2009, and the tally is expected to reach 490 in 2013. PMSA is described as a nonprofit voluntary association with a membership of 700 newspapers and magazines in four languages.

Greater numbers of complaints to the ombudsman organization have been laid to growing public awareness of the organization’s public advocate role and its effectiveness in dealing with complaints about inaccurate or unfair newspaper reporting, according to IOLnews.

The newspaper industry’s previous system of self-regulation came under attack as “toothless,” and the governing African National Congress threatened to create a statutory tribunal to hear complaints. That was avoided by a stronger stance by the ombudsmen.

For example, Press Ombudsman Retief ordered the Daily Sun newspaper to publish a front page apology for front page color photos of the bodies of people killed in mob attacks.

Complainants said the pictures were insensitive, dehumanizing, inconsiderate, caused discomfort to society and lacked compassion, according to a report in the Mail & Guardian.

The photos published in October and November also raised concerns that they exposed society, including children, to extreme violence and desensitized people to violent crimes.