Guidomedia

While US President George Bush has been copping criticism from the media for his handling of the evacuation and subsequent relief effort of Hurricane Katrina, journalists themselves now have their own criticism to report on.

Members of the American media have recently come under fire for their portrayal of events in the wake of hurricane Katrina.
Inappropriate use of language and accusations of sensationalized reporting have been just some of the issues fuelling criticism from the government, the public and even fellow industry members.

A recent email depicting the aftermath of the tragedy has done nothing to ease the 'unprofessional' tag attached to certain journalists and has also raised serious questions about ethics in reporting.

The email was of two news stories, with similar photographs and very different captions. In the first photograph, a black man is wading through floodwaters with some food. The caption describes him as having 'looted' the goods. A separate picture of two white people also wading through the floodwaters with food describes them as just trying to 'survive' after 'finding' food. The problem is obvious.

Ethics in journalism is an interpretive notion at the best of times. However, when a massive disaster occurs and journalists are pushed to the forefront of delivering horrible events to the public, normally straightforward ethical matters can become suddenly blurred.

This essay uses hurricane Katrina as a talking point for journalistic ethical issues. It questions language used by the media in dramatic events, assesses the difficulty faced by photojournalists in deciding what is appropriate for the public to view and examines the struggle journalists face with keeping their personal feeling out of their profession.

Moral fibers -- The 'right' way to report

Without ethical codes, journalism doesn't have a leg to stand on. There needs to be, and are, very necessary codes to adhere to. And while most journalists can rely on their commonsense to stay on the right side of the ethical line, the following are codes all journalists need to be familiar with.

The Australian Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance note four key areas in their code of ethics, very similar to most other media organization codes. Honesty, fairness, independence and respect for the rights of others, are the responsibilities that MEAA journalists commit themselves to.

These four aspects cover such issues as source confidentiality, commercial interference in reporting, fair opportunity to reply and plagiarism. While these particular issues may not be directly relevant to the coverage of hurricane Katrina, many of the most important codes couldn't be more significant than now.

One of these, details no unnecessary emphasis needing to be placed on a persons personal characteristics, including race, ethnicity and nationality.So what denotes a 'necessary' situation?

You can't say that -- Racist connotations in language

In an open forum from the San Francisco Chronicle, Ishmael Reed wrote an article entitled 'Colour-blind coverage?
In it, he describes the coverage of hurricane Katrina as “inflammatory, sensational and racist”.

These comments are being echoed throughout the Internet, mainly by bloggers, who are enraged by what they see as unfair and unsubstantiated reporting.

Much of the controversy has been ignited by the use of the word 'refugees' among some media outlets, to describe the people left stranded in the wake of the hurricane.

“Over one million people with the means to leave, fled before the storm, but nearly 150,000 were left behind. They represented the poorest 15-20 per cent of New Orleans' population and were predominately black,” said Malkia A. Cyril in his article Racism or Relief?

The term refugee has been historically linked with ethnic minorities, which has fuelled anger over the use of the word in media coverage. Rev Jesse Jackson, one of the America's foremost civil rights figures said, “It is racist to call American citizens refugees.”

Dictionary.com defines the word refugee as, "One who flees in search of refuge, as in times of war, political oppression, or religious persecution." Yes, hurricane Katrina victims are seeking refuge, although not specifically for the above reasons, so is the term appropriate or not?

People have different views on what is right or wrong, so should journalists be crucified for using a word that could easily been viewed as 'fair', according to their ethical guidelines?

In his article Refugees, Riots and Evacuees: Who Decides? Scott Libin questions the influences on language used by the media, asking, "Is it only when someone in a position of power complains? How many angry readers, viewers or listeners does it take? If editors and news managers defer to such demands, where do they draw the line on future decisions about language?"

These questions cannot be answered simply. All that can be concluded is that if the word refugee has caused such uproar among the public and government bodies, there is a great possibility that after the dust has settled on Katrina, members of the media may need to rethink this term and its ethical constraints.

Visual distain -- Photojournalism

As we have seen, words used by the media in coverage of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina have evoked arguments and distain by many. So if a picture is worth a thousand words, how are images of the aftermath, given coverage by the media, having an effect?

Just like the public viewer has different ideals and beliefs to their neighbors, different newsrooms employ their own separate ethical codes.

In her book Ethics and Journalism, Karen Sanders explains how after the September 11 attacks, the president of the American ABC network banned images of the planes crashing into the twin towers as he felt the effect was too 'depressing' for the American people.

The writers of Doing Ethics in Journalism describe photojournalists as having perhaps the "toughest job of all when it comes to journalism ethics".

They, and inevitably their superiors, must decide how the photo is going to visually impact the viewer, if it is going to be interpreted as an attempt at shock value, if the image respects the photographed person's rights, and possibly the most important of all, if the picture reflects the event accurately.

Unfortunately in hurricane Katrina's case, dead bodies were images depicting accuracy in the most painful and sensitive light.

Poynter online recently published an article detailing FEMA's (Federal Emergency Management Agency) request that the media not publish any pictures of dead bodies resulting from hurricane Katrina, although they understood that in the end, editors would be the ones to decide.

Their reasoning was that showing these images to the public was disrespectful to the deceased people and their families.

Some may say this is a fair call, considering the impact on a person who may discover a family member is dead via television or the newspaper. However, some Poynter journalists were quick to criticize the censorship.
Kenny Irby said, “The public needs to see the impact of our inadequate planning and deficient response to this national disaster.” And Kelly McBride reasoned, “Many newsrooms have policies that forbid displaying photos of dead bodies, more specifically dead Americans. (We show dead foreigners all the time.) I don't think newsrooms can tell the truth of this story if they don't show some bodies.” Their views may be typical from a journalist's point of view, but they may also have the public on side, the very people FEMA are trying to protect.

I interviewed Adrian Garcia, a 24-year-old man from Louisiana, who was directly affected by the hurricane.

He and his family lost their home but luckily all made it out alive. I asked him if he thought that some of the photographs published by the media of deceased people shouldn't be shown, as they may be too confronting for the public or unfair to the people suffering.

He answered, “I feel the people should see the footage because it gives them the idea that this is not going on in some foreign country, its happening here. Also, the people down here need donations and help, what better way to show the American public the desperate need than the truth?”

It could be argued that Adrian's comments must be heard with some serious weight, as he is there, experiencing the pain first hand.

For him, the initial horror of viewing a disturbing photograph justifies the outcome that publishing these pictures may bring.

The question has to be asked, should anyone not directly affected by the hurricane have a real say on what the public gets to see?

But I can't report without Google -- The difficulty in reporting solo

For journalists, decisions made in situations like Katrina need to be made on the spot, with the realities of reporting on the ground becoming quite irrelevant to what they have read in a textbook.

Many are torn between their human instincts to help those in need, their personal attitudes and their professional obligations.

In their article, The Story of The Hurricane, Sheelah Kolhatkar and Rebecca Dana report, “In some cases, the unusual reporting environment allowed journalists in both print and television to exercise muscles that had long grown stiff.”

The political backlash regarding Bush's 'slow response' has been something many reporters have struggled to stay silent on.

American ABC News Correspondent Chris Bury was one of many journalists frustrated at the lack of help.
“We certainly tried to keep our personal feelings out of the reporting. But if some of that came through, I'm not sure it's all together a bad thing," he said. New York Times reporter Kate Zernike agreed, “In some ways it's refreshing to not have the official line, where your only choice is just to see it in front of you.”

And while some journalists found the unfiltered reporting environment of Katrina "refreshing", many observers found the accuracy of their information highly questionable.

Without even basic telephone lines in operation, most reporters were relaying information to the public they had received from many of the thousands of angry and frustrated people stuck in New Orleans, who could be described as hardly objective or reliable.

The raping of children, robberies and murders were all reported on, especially from The Superdome, which became the face of the tragedy with around 20,000 people stranded.

President Bush describing the Superdome as having, "morphed into a mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds are being done."

While much of the reporting may have been based on rumors and the tone sensationalized, a lot of the blame has now been attributed to the lack of resources, usually readily available to journalists.

Being a 'good' journalist in a bad situation

One of the other major reasons American journalists found reporting in New Orleans so hard to deal with was the fact that it was happening in their own backyard.

Their situation reflects the difficulty in staying detached and therefore 'professional' when the fact is that this could have easily happened to them.

Journalist Brian Williams told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was surprised at the effect covering the aftermath of Katrina had on him when he had witnessed similar horrors while covering Iraq and Banda Aceh after the tsunami.
“I didn't know it would be so dramatic,” he said. “It surprised me at how different it was that the man floating past my window, face down, was an American, in America.”

Being a 'good' reporter is usually associated with being cold, detached and hard. Therefore, letting personal feelings filter through in the media can expose a reporter as seemingly weak and unprofessional.

Tragedies like Katrina see journalists faced with the ultimate test of how a 'good' reporter should deliver the news. And if the above reasoning of how to define a 'good' reporter is true, then many reporters in New Orleans have failed.

However, isn't showing compassion for victims and reporting the truth about a slow response to an emergency, being fair, honest and respecting the rights of others? Codes of ethics which a 'good' journalist is meant to adhere to.
As Karen Sanders says, “Being a good reporter is not being emptied of humanity.”

Taking the positive from the negative

There is no real 'conclusion' regarding the coverage of hurricane Katrina, except to say that journalists' experiences from the tragedy will serve as an insight to future media employees, learning to deal with moral reasoning.

Present journalists, may also view Katrina as the greatest test they ever faced, to see how responsible they were in making their own ethical judgments under an enormous amount of pressure.

Bibliography

1. Allen, Stuart and Zelizer, Barbie. 2002. Journalism After September 11. London: Routledge.

2. Belsey, Andrew and Chadwick, Ruth. 1992. Ethical Issues In Journalism and the Media. London: Routledge.

3. Black, Jay, Barney, Ralph and Steele, Bob. 1999. Doing Ethics in Journalism: A Handbook with Case studies. US: Allyn and Bacon.

4. Brian, Thevenot (American Journalism Review) Apocalypse in New Orleans. October 2005. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3959 (3 October 2005).

5. Cyril, Malkia A. (AlterNet) Racism or Relief? 8 September 2005, http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/25181/ (30 September 2005)

6. Dana, Rebecca and Kolhatkar, Sheelah. (The New York Observer) The Story of the Hurricane, 2005, http://observer.sbsisp.com/printpage.asp?iid=11413&ic=News+Story+2
(29 September 2005).

7. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) http://www.fema.gov/
(4 October 2005).

8. Journalism.org. Reporting Katrina: What's getting covered. 12 September 2005.
http://www.journalism.org/resources/research/reports/katrina/searches.asp
(20 September 2005).

9. Libin, Scott. (Poynter Online) Refugees, Riots, and Evacuees: Who Decides? 7 September 2005. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=68&aid=88496
(20 September 2005).

10. McBride, Kelly. (Poynter Online) Ethical Questions About Covering Katrina. 2 September 2005. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=68&aid=88184
(20 September 2005).

11. Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) Online. Media Alliance Code of Ethics. 2005. http://www.alliance.org.au/hot/ethicscode.htm
(30 September 2005).

12. Online News Hour (PBS Transcript) Katrina Media Coverage. 29 September 2005 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec05/media_9-29.html
(30 September 2005).

13. Paglia, Camille (The Independent) Hurricane Katrina has demolished this administration's mask of confidence. 3 September 2005. http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article309925.ece
(5 September 2005).

14. Rainbow Push Coalition, Jesse Jackson page. http://www.rainbowpush.org/founder/
(5 October 2005).

15. Rainey, James and Rosenblatt, Susannah (LA Times) Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy, 27 September 2005, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rumors27sep27,0,5492806,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines (5th October 2005).

16. Reed, Ishmael. (San Francisco Chronicle, Open Forum) Color-blind coverage?
9 September 2005. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/09/09/EDGC0EKP0B1.DTL
(20 September 2005).

17. Sanders, Karen. 2003. Ethics in Journalism. London: Sage Publications.

18. Van Dijk, Teun A. 1991. Racism and the Press. London: Routledge.

19. Vega, Cecilia M. (San Francisco Chronicle) Media have complete access, Army says Brass contradicts soldier who threatened Chronicle team covering body recovery. 14 September 2005. http://sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/14/MNG7KEN9FS1.DTL
(20 September 2005)

Interview

Garcia, Adrian. 24. Via email, 27 September 2005. adriangarcia525@hotmail.com

Return to top

Use this tool to search our site or the web.

Free Newsletter

Try our newsletter. Each week (more or less) we email a free summary of media news stories in an easy-to-read interactive PDF. To subscribe, email us here with the subject line "subscribe GM".

Movers & shakers
See our selection of speeches & papers on media issues... click

Spin City
From the wonderful world of PR… click

Guidomedia.com
An Australian publishing resource
* Home * News * Resources * Research * Leisure * About us * Jobs * Dates * Return to main index