18 votes

Decolonise media: How do you cover genocide?

5 comments

  1. [4]
    DanBC
    Link
    New Humanitarian is excellent.

    New Humanitarian is excellent.

    The responsibility of the ethical journalist extends beyond simply acknowledging that a genocide may be happening. Media studies professor Lauren Kogen argues that “the act of telling a story in such a way that the distant sufferer is ultimately ignored by the media audience” is harmful journalistic practice, and has called for new media ethics frameworks that acknowledge the obligations journalists have as human beings in a globalised world. She suggests that ethical reporting should “encourage the viewer to see the distant sufferer as worthy of succour”, empower audiences, and emphasise social obligations to help end the suffering.

    4 votes
    1. [3]
      V17
      Link Parent
      Man, I guess it may bring some positive results over a broad audience on average, but speaking only about myself, there are few things I hate more in modern journalism than journalists thinking...
      • Exemplary

      Man, I guess it may bring some positive results over a broad audience on average, but speaking only about myself, there are few things I hate more in modern journalism than journalists thinking that they have an obligation to tell me what to think.

      I do read opinion pieces by people I know and whose opinions I care about, but with normal reporting, I want it dry, striving for objectivity and with very little input from the reporter's opinions. A journalist attempting to do activism is a 100% sure way to get me to look for different sources.

      24 votes
      1. [2]
        Halfdan
        Link Parent
        The thing is, people lie. If you quote a lie without mentioning it being a lie, this won't exactly be unbiased, either. Also, if you know that a lot of readers will be unaware of X, and that this...

        The thing is, people lie. If you quote a lie without mentioning it being a lie, this won't exactly be unbiased, either. Also, if you know that a lot of readers will be unaware of X, and that this will lead them to misinteprets your news story, not mentioning X will be lying by ommision.

        As I see it, a journalist has a choice between mainstream bias ("objectivity") or being biased by how they themselves sees the world.

        6 votes
        1. V17
          Link Parent
          Obviously, but you can give the reasons why you believe something is a lie and let the readers decide themselves. In reality it's not always perfectly possible because you don't always have the...

          The thing is, people lie. If you quote a lie without mentioning it being a lie, this won't exactly be unbiased, either. Also, if you know that a lot of readers will be unaware of X, and that this will lead them to misinteprets your news story, not mentioning X will be lying by ommision.

          Obviously, but you can give the reasons why you believe something is a lie and let the readers decide themselves. In reality it's not always perfectly possible because you don't always have the space and have to shorten things a lot, but that should obviously be the ideal. Oftentimes people also jump to the "it's a lie" explanation without considering that it may be stupidity and ignorance, which without other proof also reduces their legitimacy.

          If a journalist rando says "xxx is a lie", I'm going to acknowledge it as a possibility, but I'm going to take it with a huge grain of salt. If they say "xxx is not believed to be the truth among many because of yyy and zzz", I'm going to take them much more seriously. And it's, again, closer to journalism than opinions.

          9 votes
  2. [2]
    Comment removed by site admin
    Link
    1. rosco
      Link Parent
      Have you checked out Propublica? I think they are a pretty good example of investigative journalism with minimal financial incentives.

      Have you checked out Propublica? I think they are a pretty good example of investigative journalism with minimal financial incentives.

      2 votes