Ethics and amateur news images…
I found this article in USA Today, about publishing amateur disaster news photos, interesting as a teacher of media ethics and a soon-to-be teacher of photojournalism. Here’s what one ethicist has to say:
Kelly McBride, who lectures about media ethics at the Poynter Institute for professional journalists, said the media have a responsibility “to refuse to publish photos taken (by amateurs) when someone was obviously risking his life or the lives of others.”
Does McBride understand how professional news photographers work? Most of them are happy to dash into danger to get the shot. They have no special training in how not to risk their own lives or the lives of others, although they possess the common human trait of not wanting to cause harm in such situations. About the only differences I can see between the amateur and the professional in a disaster situation are that the professional has better equipment, more experience, more concentration on a specific task, and (probably) more talent for getting the “best” shot. Otherwise, the professional is every bit as much a danger to himself and others as the amateur.
The news media are quite happy for citizens to risk their lives to save others. Such heroics make great copy. Should we apply McBride’s ethical standards to cases such as Lenny Skutnik? Should news organizations encourage heroism? And just where does heroism end and foolishness begin?
Two facts: 1) Technology is making it easy for citizens to report the news in words and pictures; and 2) Citizens have always reported the news in words and pictures when they find themselves in news situations with the means to collect information and images. This, for example.
I would say it is unethical for news organizations to encourage citizens to go dashing into news situations. Payment for their imagines, however, does not constitute such encouragement. A picture is a product subject to the copyright laws. If a news organization wishes to print or broadcast images taken by amateurs, it must pay. Amateurs are under no obligation to offer their property for free.
Publication of such images also does not constitute encouragement. But this does: Making celebrities of them afterward. That citizens can cover news events with mobile phones and other gadgets is no longer news.
http://www.tamark.ca/students/?p=1578
Andrew Cline has returned to the media blogosphere after a week of tenting in Minnesota and his first post back is a welcome take on the mini-controversy over mainstream use of images from citizen journalists. The issue of “putting citizens in d…