ABSTRACT
If democracy and free expression rests on the third leg of equality in order to deliver civil rights to all in our protection of natural rights, journalists should be doing all they can to prevent insensitive and discriminatory reporting. This is problematic as journalists have to accept that most societies have ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’; those with power and influence and those with little or none and that journalists may need to treat those who are more vulnerable differently to those who have power and influence. There are groups in society who are made particularly vulnerable to media abuse or oppression because they have had their ability to control their lives substantially reduced by the circumstances in which they find themselves and there is a second group that is particularly vulnerable to media victimisation because of who they are. Those who have their power reduced (at least temporarily) because of circumstance include victims of disaster, domestic abuse, crime (including families of those accused or convicted), the bereaved or the seriously sick or injured. This group may also include those who are badly affected by poverty and it may certainly include groups such as immigrants. It is possible to leave or join these groups and nearly all of us do, to a greater or lesser extent, at various times in our lives. Those with limited power because of who they are include children, ethnic minorities and other minorities such as the transgendered, gay people and people with disabilities. These groups are more stable in their vulnerability with their members locked within the framework set for them by the media for their entire lives. Both these groups at appropriate times require journalists to consider reporting their stories in as sensitive a way as possible. This also applies to the second group but this group also requires reporters to consider the elimination of discriminatory reporting. Words, pictures, expressions, including the choice of copy or video footage and its editing and use, can be crucial in deciding whether copy or video will give a truthful or misleading impression about the views, feelings or approach of a minority or oppressed group. Many a politician has seized on the scapegoat nature of a minority group to place all the problems and dissatisfaction of society at its door. From the very earliest of leaders through to the modern politician of your choice, there have always been those who have been willing to play on people’s fears about other cultures. Nor is it just politicians. Ordinary citizens are also often keen to blame minority or culturally oppressed groups for their problems or failures. Often this can be explained by ignorance or fear. If we do not know or understand the culture of a minority or oppressed group, it is easy to see its behaviour as unacceptable or ‘uncivilised’ and therefore not worthy of consideration or respect. Only when we come to understand another culture’s ways can we start to realise that it is, like ours, only human and neither totally wrong nor totally right. It should be a part of a journalist’s role to give readers the information they need to reach sensible decisions, not to play on their fears and prejudices. If journalists tell people only what they expect to hear about minority or oppressed groups then the debate about their position in society is not advanced. It is part of the journalist’s duty to help advance society’s awareness of such problems by providing people with a wider truth than their existing prejudices. This determination to inform people and help them overcome their fears does not mean that a journalist cannot write material that is critical of one culture or another. Journalists need to be truthful about a society, cultural group or minority if we are to come to valid conclusions. The public needs to know why this group of people has aroused hatred in another, and the failings and good points of both, if they are to understand difficult and serious situations around the world. We can use Aristotle’s golden mean here to try to set the standard somewhere between the frugality of no debate and the excess of printing every offensive piece of bigotry available. The elements of hatred and violence are often used to help define this mean into a universal law. An example of a debate where a lack of sound information stunts understanding is immigration.
