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By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

The email query came from a British Broadcasting Corporation reporter based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The question was short and to the point: “Does a story and photo, with the consent of the doctors, of a COVID-19 patient in hospital violate his right to privacy?”

The question came at a time when the entire world was grappling not only with the global pandemic itself, but also with how to report and explain it ethically and accurately. Those are controversial issues even now, including conflicting accounts on how the pandemic started.

Worldwide, more than 7 million COVID-19 deaths have been reported to the World Health Organization, 1.2 million of them in the United States. The pandemic was the worst world-wide calamity of the 21^st century. The death toll is the highest since the 1918-20 Spanish Flu and World War Two.

Rights protected

The question from the BBC reporter demonstrates that even in the midst of a global health crisis, the rights and safety of every individual should be protected. It also shows that AdviceLine gets questions about ethics from journalists all over the world.

Joe Mathewson, who teaches ethics and law of journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, was the AdviceLine advisor on duty the day the BBC reporter’s question arrived.

Responding to the reporter, Mathewson pointed out that BBC has editorial guidelines, including a section on privacy that states: “We must be able to demonstrate why an infringement of privacy is justified, and, when using the public interest to justify an infringement, consideration should be given to proportionality; the greater the intrusion, the greater the public interest required to justify it.”

Infringement

Further: “We must be able to justify infringement of an individual’s privacy without their consent by demonstrating that the intrusion is outweighed by the public interest….. We must balance the public interest in the full and accurate reporting of stories involving human suffering and distress with an individual’s privacy and respect for their human dignity.”

In this case, Mathewson asked the BBC reporter if he got the COVID-19 patient’s consent to be interviewed and photographed by the BBC or the press generally, understanding that the story would identify him?

If he did not, Mathewson told the reporter, “then the next question is, does your story constitute an infringement of his personal privacy? If so, was there a public interest in your story? Finally, was the infringement warranted by the public interest? I believe these are the questions that you should entertain and, as appropriate, answer to your own satisfaction.”

A discussion

The case did not end there. Periodically, the AdviceLine team, which includes four advisors with experience teaching ethics at the university level, have a Zoom meeting to discuss cases that come to AdviceLine. The sessions include veteran journalists who understand how newsrooms operate.

They are critique discussions intended to check whether the advice given to journalists was as good as it should be, or could have been improved. Occasionally there are disagreements, or praise for answering some particularly tough question.

Hugh Miller, another AdviceLine advisor, said he saw a parallel in the BBC case with a book about early coverage of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which was not covered well by the media. There were few reports of the human suffering seen in AIDS hospital wards. Better coverage of the AIDS epidemic, said Miller, could have informed the subsequent coverage of COVID-19, which also was not covered well inside COVID hospital wards.

Not a hoax

“If we had been able to see more of that, it would have made people more cautious,” explained Miller. “COVID is not a hoax.”

David Ozar is a founding member of AdviceLine, and continues as an AdviceLine advisor.

The question has to be asked if it is necessary to pursue a person’s identification. “The answer is no,” Ozar insists. Patients should not be identified. He believes there were many COVID reports from hospital intensive care units.

Privacy needed

“You could not see them, could not see who they were,” said Ozar. Personal identification “needs to be private,” he insists. He is adamant on that. Ozar serves as a consulting ethicist to medical, hospital, nursing and dental groups.

Journalists  argue that stories of human suffering are told best with the help of people willing to be identified, to show that real people are involved and have personal stories to tell. That often creates sympathy and a public willingness to help the stricken.

Otherwise, disasters seem impersonal, too big to comprehend.

Another lesson here is that ethicists do not always agree on what is ethical. Miller believes media need to pay more attention to human suffering in a health crisis, while Ozar says those suffering should not be identified.

What do you think?

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.