How far is too far?

Ethics and morals is a very crucial issue in the Media Industry. A few of you have written on this subject and Orla in particular made some valid points on the issue. This piece is just a few examples I wish to share of the incidences, in both recent and past times, which made me think more on the subject.


So basically, morals are all about knowing the difference between right and wrong. However, I think in this celebrity obsessed time and ever more competitive media industry, morals have quite possibly been replaced by knowing how much you can get away with.

One thing we definitely know is that making someone cry is wrong, isn’t it? What if you make someone cry with the questions you ask in an interview? Is that overstepping the mark or is that nailing the tough questions and catching a usually plugging, PR spewing ‘celeb’ off guard?

A week ago, Peter Andre, ahem…singer and ex-husband of Katie Price broke down in a live Sky News interview with Kay Berley. The interviewer had played footage of Dwight Yorke, the biological father of the child Andre cares for and wishes to adopt, followed by probing questions about his relationship with his children. An investigation is now being carried out and Berley may run the risk of being fired.

I am in two minds about his event. On the one hand, a person making millions from magazine interviews, photographs of them and their children in their home and sharing secrets about past relationships while posing as a so called ‘music artist’ has opened themselves up and has no grounds to be picky or sensitive in regards to what their asked. But at the same time it is no ones business what kind of relationship he has with his children, unless the children are in danger.

Again the argument of public interest versus what the public are interested in comes into play. This type of information can’t be considered news, surely. It isn’t going to have any impact on my life so I don’t have the right to know anything about his life, even if he does lay himself wide open to the public eye. However I still can’t settle comfortably on either side of this argument.

Say for instance the person being interviewed is a political figure shaping certain aspects of my life. If they are someone who decides how much tax I have to pay or how much money the university I attend has to spend in the next year, I have a right to know about them. The tricky question is how much information do I have the right to know and how much of what I know is just me being nosey?

On his first night as the presenter of The Late Late show Ryan Tubridy caused controversy with is hard hitting interview with Taoiseach Brian Cowen. Some of the questions were only all too well deserved giving the financial state of the country a year ago. It was refreshing to see tough questions being put before the bewildered Taoiseach who usually, I presume, prepares and has answers written well in advance.

The interview, for me at least, took an uneasy turn when Tubridy began to hit the Taoiseach hard and fast with questions regarding his drinking. Was this taking things too far? Does how much alcohol Cowen consumes really concern me? You could say no, of course not, how much he drinks in his free time is private. Alternatively you could argue if our Taoiseach drinks too much it may impair his ability to lead our government effectively. There is a third option, Tubridy may have been blowing the topic of drinking way out of proportion. This makes pin pointing the interview has too harsh or just right even harder.

One thing I will say is that Tubridy may have got carried away and even if you do see his questions as valid he asked them in such a speedy succession that Cowen could not answer. Effectively the manner in which he asked the questions made them irrelevant as they weren’t answered anyway. Again, I find it difficult to come to my own definite conclusion on whether the mark was over stepped in this interview. I think perhaps some of the questions were a bit much but it isn’t any harm for those in power to get a bit of a shake now and then.

One clear cut rule is that of defamation and it is obeyed, for the most part. One slight loophole I suppose you would call it, is that it is impossible to defame the dead. This means that after the death of anyone in the public eye most publications in the media industry have a field day, case in point Michael Jackson and even closer to home, Steven Gately.

The mail received thousands of complaints after Jan Moir wrote an article in October of last year in the days following Gatelys death. Moirs article speculated that the circumstances in which Gately died were a lot more suspicious than what was initially reported.

Ultimately, forgiving her criticism his singing and belittling his accomplishments as a gay right activist, I think it was they language used and the slightly negative portrayal of the life of a gay man is what drew all the complaints. Words like “sleazy” and “bitter truth” did not help the matter. Also, implying his parents were purposely downplaying his sudden death did not go down so well. So just because he is dead it doesn’t matter what is said about him?

What about his parents, his partner and his friends still grieving and subjected to this less than complimentary article? Should the editor have allowed this article to be printed at all or perhaps held of for at least a few days? It is a right to free speech and no laws were broken by the content but I think it was distasteful. Again the right and wrong of this article is hard to fathom.

On reflection I think that perhaps there is no right and wrong in Media. Morals are a huge and ever expanding grey area and will continue to be. Each individual case has to be looked at. I know bloging is all about your opinion but the jury’s still out on the events mentioned here.

What I do think is that it’s not a simple call to make, maybe you can make more sense of it.

JM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLXcQNQJ0qk
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death--.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErxADYAfJQ4