#ethics
It’s obvious what’s gained from these collaborations. As travel budgets decline, the work of far-flung freelancers is increasingly in demand, but often without any initial financial outlay from the outlets that eventually run our content. That leaves a freelancer with the near-impossible task of figuring out how to cover the cost of transportation, fixers, translators, equipment, and accommodation, while still being able to eat.
That calculation changes when a UN agency or an NGO springs for the cost of a flight or offers a place to stay.
Beyond the bottom line, there is the issue of safety.
Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review, by Andrew Green
UN Photo
By Brendan Fitzgerald for the Columbia Journalism Review
Like the victims whose stories they tell, reporters who cover rape face a powerful challenge to their credibility. A failure to withstand that challenge could silence reporters and rape survivors alike.
Read more.
Double Standard:
‘Has Anyone Here Been Raped by ISIS?’
by
Sherizaan Minwalla for the Daily Beast.
It’s been more than 50 years since a British journalist who came across a group of Belgian nuns in war-ravaged Congo was heard to shout, “Anyone here been raped and speaks English?” But the callousness of that line, made infamous as the title of a book by veteran correspondent Edward Behr, remains with us today. If anything, the reportorial cynicism and exploitation of the victims may be worse.
Iraqi and international journalists who have reported on Yazidi women and girls escaping from ISIS captivity have focused obsessively on slave markets, forced marriage, and rape.
I live in Iraqi Kurdistan, where I’ve met a number of these journalists, including those looking for contacts in the Yazidi community. When I ask journalists about their reasons for highlighting sexual violence, I hear different responses. Some claim that dramatic stories are the only way to grab people’s attention and to get them to care and react. One journalist told me that by getting the victim to talk, she was helping her to deal with her trauma and shame.
ISIS recently released another 216 Yazidis in Kirkuk, and women and children continue to flee, although those numbers have gone down significantly in the past few months. And journalists persist in finding those escaped victims to ask them about sexual violence they suffered in captivity, despite the fact that they are traumatized and may face retaliation or rejection if such details emerge.
Does the public’s interest in knowing explicit details of sexual violence outweigh these victims’ urgent need for safety and privacy? I don’t think so and there are indications that victims would agree.
Continue reading.
Broadcasting murder: Militants use media for deadly purpose
News of the August 19, 2014, murder of journalist James Foley broke not in the media but instead on Twitter. News organizations faced the agonizing questions of how to report on the killing and what portions of the video to show. If a group or individual commits an act of violence, and then films it, how can traditional news organizations cover it without amplifying the propaganda message?
Read the full essay.
“Journalists are in the truth-telling business. Sometimes the truth is hard to watch.”
– Graphic New York Times video seems justified | Poynter. (via onaissues)
“There is no consensus on the role graphic imagery should play in journalism. For some it is an absolute taboo; for others a necessary evil to expose the evil in others.”
– andy carvin
Human Trafficking Awareness and Photographic Ensnarement: A World Press Winning Portrait
The crime of human trafficking is one that robs its victims of personal agency. Liu Song’s depiction of an accused sex worker in China (which won 2nd prize in the Portrait Singlescategory of the 2015 World Press Photo contest) illustrates the extent to which victims of human trafficking are subjected to cycles of re-victimization.
Read more at Bagnews.
“We are writing to ensure that you are aware that [Sony Pictures Entertainment] does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading, or making any use of the Stolen Information.”
–
A letter from Sony counsel David Boies warns various news organizations about potential legal action against them if they report on the content hackers have released from the studio. Via Re/Code.
Covering the “Islamic State” (by Michele Leridon for AFP)
Faced with the kidnap and murder of journalists in Syria, Iraq and Africa, and the flood of horrific propaganda images churned out by the “Islamic State” group and its offshoots, it is time to reaffirm some ethical and editorial ground rules.
Our challenge is to strike a balance between our duty to inform the public, the need to keep our reporters safe, our concern for the dignity of victims being paraded by extremists, and the need to avoid being used as a vehicle for hateful, ultraviolent propaganda.
Read the full story.
image credit: AFP Photo / JM Lopez
