WEEK 10: ETHICS AND TRUST

DEATH IN GAMBELLA: WHAT MANY HEARD, WHAT ONE BLOGGER SAW,

AND WHY THE PROFESSIONAL NEWS MEDIA IGNORED IT.

Adam Weir

READING:

McGill, Douglas, Jeremy Iggers and Andrew R Cline (2007) ‘Death in Gambella: What many heard, what one blogger saw, and why the professional news media ignored it’, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22(4):280-299.

KEY TERM: ETHICS

‘The study which arises from the human capacity to choose among values’.

‘The central concerns of ethics: How are we to live together? What is the good, the bad, the evil, the just, the unjust, the unfair? How are we to differentiate and choose between them?’

‘Human history teaches us that it is our capacity for goodness which makes ethics possible and it is our propensity for evil that makes it necessary’.

Preston, 2007

JOURNALISM AND ETHICS 1. They shall report and interpret the news with

scrupulous honesty by striving to disclose all essential facts and by not suppressing relevant, available facts or by distorting by wrong or improper emphasis.

2. They shall not place unnecessary emphasis on gender, race, sexual preference, religious belief, marital status or physical or mental disability.

3. In all circumstances they shall respect all confidences received in the course of their calling.

4. They shall not allow personal interests to influence them in the course of their professional duties.

5. They shall not allow their professional duties to be influenced by any consideration, gift or advantage offered and, where appropriate, shall disclose any such offer.

6. They shall not allow advertising or commercial considerations to influence them in their professional duties.

7. They shall use fair and honest means to obtain news, films, tapes and documents.

8. They shall identify themselves and their employers before obtaining any interview for publication or broadcast.

9. They shall respect private grief and personal privacy and shall have the right to resist compulsion to intrude on them.

10. They shall do their utmost to correct any published or broadcast information found to be harmfully inaccurate.

THE READING

Is about Douglas McGill, a former professional journalist who worked for The New York Times and Bloomberg News, who came to a moral crossroads in terms of reporting an act of genocide by an Ethiopian government which had gone unnoticed by the global press.

READING IN SUMMARY...

Douglas McGill was working as a volunteer teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL) at a school in Rochester, Minnesota.

Many of the students were refugees from countries that had been torn apart by war, but most notably was Obang Cham, a man in his late 20’s from a small tribe in Ethiopia called the Anuak, a tribe of people from a place called Gambella which is invisible to the world.

‘On the afternoon of December 13, 2003, my dilemma came to a head when my telephone started ringing. Anuak men whom I’d met in the previous months told me a chilling story—that one of the periodic massacres of Anuak men, women, and children was underway at that very moment’ (McGill et al, 2007).

Anuak men in Minnesota were receiving telephone calls from friends and families back home in Gambella describing live scenes of the massacre taking place.

A total of 425 people were killed by uniformed Ethiopian soldiers.

Days following McGill checked all news institutions for reports of the massacre, but ‘not a word on the alleged massacre was published’ (McGill et all, 2007).

Eventually a United Nations wire item mentioned that ‘there had been violence in Gambella, and the Ethiopian government released a statement reporting that ‘‘tribal violence’’ in western Ethiopia had caused up to a dozen deaths’ (McGill et all, 2007).

This wire report was a result of propaganda by the Ethiopian government who blamed the killings on the tribes people not the Ethiopian army.

As McGill was a former professional journalist, he started to build a report and gathered information about the killings and assembled a large amount of testimonies from the Anuak people who had received live telephone calls from witnesses back in Gambella (“earwitnesses”).

He also had an interview with a man who was an eyewitness to the massacre.

QUESTION: IF YOU WERE IN DOUGLAS MCGILL’S SHOES, WOULD YOU PUBLISH THAT REPORT?

Remembering: He is not backed by a news institution,

therefore any backlash the report can get will be on him as an individual rather then against a news organisation.

He has no real “solid” evidence, only reports by “earwitnesses” and if he was still a professional journalist the material gathered wouldn’t be enough to accuse a government of genocide.

There has already been a report by the United Nations that had “officially” stated that the deaths were a result of the tribes people.

‘I felt in my gut that I knew something close enough to the truth to publish. And my conscience told me it was my duty to publish, because even up to December 22, the day I finally did publish an account of the massacre, not a single news publication had done so. If I didn’t publish, who would?’ (McGill et al, 2007)

As a result of McGill’s article: An investigator was hired and sent to

Ethiopia to investigate the claims. All the crimes McGill had alleged the

Ethiopian government committed were supported.

The media started to publicise the massacre which took place.

The Ethiopian opposition government officially recognised the acts carried out by the Ethiopian army to be of genocide and they now fight for political change.

McGill was eventually hired by a news publication Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Although this story has been recognised as being factual, ‘to this day, the story of the Anuak genocide has hardly scratched the surface of public awareness in the United States. Although it is a confirmed case of African genocide, not a single minute of national network or cable TV news time has been devoted to it’ (McGill et all, 2007).

WHAT CAN WE DRAW FROM THIS?

For an act of genocide to not be publicised and still be counted as un-newsworthy, yet one of the most watched and followed news categories be entertainment or celebrity news, it draws to the failings of both journalists and the public equally.

‘Entertainment values continue to trump news values at journalistic institutions at all levels. Pandering after lucrative readership demographics, instead of illuminating public issues that affect all of society, is how most news decisions are made’ (McGill et al, 2007).

HTTP://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=J9UEO2ZWGUA

If news institutions have abandoned their traditional principles of journalism such as ‘providing citizens with the information they need in order to participate in democratic life’ (McGill et al, 2007), then should they still be classified as journalists?

Vs.

A blogger or citizen such as that in the McGill Report where they step in and fill the void left by the failings of professional journalism as they turn to a more profit based model?

SOME ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS...

Merina 2011 argues that, ‘some reporters are less scrupulous about sources and accuracy, especially when it comes to celebrity cases... some magazines and television programs are so dependent upon celebrities that they may hype or soften stories to promote or protect celebrities’ (Merina, 2011).

Therefore as a result of news organisations turning to celebrity news, the journalism code of ethics are commonly not followed, causing non traditional forms of journalism to fill that gap.

Paul Farhi asks.... “if newspapers, online or on paper, don’t provide the resources to report on their communities in depth, who will?” (Farhi, 2006)

‘The same revolution in digital technology that is undermining traditional news media is creating new opportunities and possibilities— and a larger, more active role for the public... Every citizen with access to the Internet can become, in effect, a publisher, distributing news and images to an ever-expanding network. Had the events in Gambella taken place a few years later, it is likely that some of the victims of the attack would have had camera phones and images to support their testimony’ (McGill et al, 2007).

As traditional news organizations continue to face the challenges of staying in business and shifting the newsroom priorities, non traditional news media will increasingly become a key role in reporting and distributing public information...

QUESTION: SHOULD BLOGGERS AND ONLINE CITIZEN JOURNALISTS HAVE A PROFESSIONAL CODE OF ETHICS AND BE LIABLE IN THE SAME WAY THAT PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS ARE?