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Archive for category Ethics & Quality
Double Standards of Scandalization
Posted by Stephan Russ-Mohl in Ethics & Quality on February 24, 2012
What else must happen before one of the world’s most powerful media moguls resigns?
Rupert Murdoch does not hold a public office like Christian Wulff, the former German president, or Philipp Hildebrand, now ex-president of the Swiss National Bank. The question of whether Murdoch is legally responsible for perhaps the largest scandal to engulf the mainstream press in decades remains open.
There is, however, no doubt that he shares a political and moral responsibility for the illegal and systematic tapping of more than 6,000 telephones committed by his journalists. This is no longer a discussion about the work of a singular black sheep, one which could conceivably be found in most large newsrooms. Under Murdoch’s supervision, an undignified corporate culture surfaced, heaving journalism in a new contemptible direction. Rarely has press freedom been abused more blatantly – and thus also endangered, as such criminal energy provokes, of course, counter reactions Read the rest of this entry »
Media Images: How much is too much?
Posted by Tina Bettels in Ethics & Quality on February 19, 2012
Photos of murdered Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi instigated a Europe-wide debate on media ethics.
A recent Swiss study analyzes how the Swiss media dealt with photo and video material in reporting on Gaddafi’s death and to what extent they crossed boundaries of media ethics.
The mobile screenshot featuring the dead body of the former Libyan leader taken by an AFP photographer made it around the world in seconds. While a few media outlets declined to publish the photo for ethical reasons, others justified the disclosure by citing it as a “historical event” which needed to be documented.
Scientists from the Public & Society research department (Forschungsbereich Öffentlichkeit und Gesellschaft – fög) at the University of Zurich analyzed roughly 40 print, Web and television media sources in the German, French and Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland. Researches specifically examined which presentation techniques were used to exhibit Gaddafi’s death and to what extent they violated ethical rules. Read the rest of this entry »
Albanian Media and the Local Market
Posted by Mark Marku in Ethics & Quality, Media Policy on February 16, 2012
The changing political system in Albania is tied to the evolution and transformation of the media industry.
The establishment of political pluralism and a market economy in 1991 brought with it the collapse of the state’s monopoly in the Albanian media market. This transition from a centralized system to a private media system was accompanied by fundamental changes in the market. In contrast to the former communist East, where the transition from controlled media markets to free markets occurred in a gradual manner, in Albania this change took place abruptly.
Thus, during the years of 1991-1997, almost all of the newspapers and magazines controlled by the communist state disappeared from circulation (with the exception of the newspaper Zëri i Popullit, the main paper of the communist party in power), and in their place emerged new newspapers which functioned primarily as private businesses. These new media businesses fundamentally transformed the landscape of Albanian media. Before 1990, only two daily national papers were printed: Zëri i Popullit and Bashkimi. In 1991 four daily papers were printed, Read the rest of this entry »
Media Struck by Hunting Fever
Posted by Stephan Russ-Mohl in Ethics & Quality on February 2, 2012
A comparison of the media’s scandalization of Hildebrand and Wulff.
Let us start with a false prognosis: Immediately preceding Swiss National Bank president Philipp Hildebrand’s public resignation, I predicted to a small group of students that – from a researcher’s perspective – German federal president Christian Wulff would be the first to resign in light of recent scandals. This misjudgment was induced by a recent study in which Hans Mathias Kepplinger, a researcher from the University of Mainz, explained the differences between a scandal and a media conflict. According to Kepplinger, scandals and media conflicts are similar due to the media’s tendency to denounce “actual or perceived grievances.” In the case of scandals, after a short period of time, “a broad consensus concerning the causes of the grievances and the responsibilities of their originators begins to form.” In the case of media conflict, there will be a public dispute over “how the causes of the grievances and the responsibilities of those being accused by the media should be treated.”
In comparing the Hildebrand case in Switzerland with the Wulff case in Germany, the original failures of both presidents can be judged as more Read the rest of this entry »
Slow News: Chew Before Swallowing
Posted by Kate Nacy in Ethics & Quality, New Media & Web 2.0 on January 23, 2012
“Shut off the TV when you know more than the anchorman.”
Such a recommendation, almost comically obvious, invites the recipient to ponder a number of scenarios in which its application could be startlingly judicious. In his latest book Slow News: A Manifesto for the Critical News Consumer (published in Italian by Sironi in Milano, with an American version to follow in 2012), Peter Laufer’s tokens of wisdom for the contemporary news consumer follow suit: they are rational, easy to abide and equally easy to overlook while managing a shrill world of tweets, feeds and perpetually breaking updates.
Laufer, an award-winning journalist toting a rich career in broadcast, documentary filmmaking, reporting and academia, offers readers a sensible set of guidelines for managing an ever-expanding info blitzkrieg. “We’re in danger of missing the story because of the noise,” he warns.
Convinced we must learn new ways to interpret a hyperactive news media, Laufer stresses his own motto: “Yesterday’s news tomorrow.” Unless you happen to be at the center of a particular news story yourself, just how imperative is it to gather straightdowntotheminute details chronicling an event occurring far Read the rest of this entry »
Fortune Tellers and Psychics Pervade Italian Media
Posted by Mariella Radaelli in Ethics & Quality on January 21, 2012
*Article courtesy of European Journalism Centre
Anyone sitting in front of the television in Italy for half an hour, especially in the evening, would soon believe we’re all in dire need of a clairvoyant.
This is because astrologers, fortune-tellers, and all sorts of psychics claiming to be blessed with supernatural powers are thriving on a variety of small and private channels.
A woman who fell victim to the famous television healer Vanna Marchi testified: “I told her my son had cancer. She gave me a private consultation for a big sum of money. She said that the case was severe and that in order to ease the progress of my son’s illness, she needed quadruple the amount. If I did not pay, my son’s fate would be tragic. I told her firmly that I wouldn’t give her any more money. She replied that I didn’t love my son”. Marchi was later arrested and her television programme was cancelled.
According to the institute of political, economic and social studies Eurispes, 13 millions of Italians consult fortune-tellers every year for a total business volume of EUR 6 billion. This means that 35,000 women and men pay a total of EUR 1,6 million a day for the services of a medium.
Data compiled by the Italian tax police Guardia di Finanza indicates that 150,000 psychics are practising in the Italian Peninsula. Read the rest of this entry »
After the Death of Print, No Paradise Awaits
Posted by Stephan Russ-Mohl in Ethics & Quality, Newsroom Management on January 15, 2012
If newspapers are no longer printed, the journalistic profession will change dramatically, and not necessarily for the better.
While several media conglomerates in the German-speaking world, among them Ringier and Springer, have prepared their online futures by merging independent newsrooms, in the U.S. several newspapers halted print publications entirely, offering online editions only. The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, has surfaced among the handful of pioneers tackling such an approach.
At this point, the Capital Times may be the first newspaper in history with an intensely researched transformation from print to online. “Journalism as Process” – the title of a study (published in Journalism Monographs, Vol. 13, No.3, 2011) by Sue Robinson of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, demonstrates how traditional boundaries and professional roles have vanished in the newsrooms of online newspapers, and how news is no longer presented as a “finite product, ” but rather created and updated Read the rest of this entry »
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