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What are the media’s moral obligations in making society aware of extreme poverty in the world?
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Jozefo
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Yes! Which is only one reason why socialism is evil.
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Jozefo
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Sometimes splitting hairs is important. There are no shades of gray. There are only increasingly fine lines of black and white.
‘Media’ has no responsibilities other than to their shareholders. Actors within the industry do have moral obligations. That’s not splitting hairs. That’s trying to frame the question correctly.
Maybe we should ask if certain reporters have moral obligations to report on poverty.
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pnewton
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I do not believe this to be true. Control is spread out over millions. Advertising revenue is based on ratings. Then we may have tens of thousands who make decisions made every day as to what is aired. Since we have no state news, market forces drive what is on the air. One might as well say someone controls the price of bread, or what movies are made. I am not splitting hairs. I really do not believe moral responsibility can be applied to anything but people. As in all things, some people behave morally and some do not. A reporter for the society page that gives to charity may be doing what her morally duty requires of him or her. A reporter that does report on poverty in Haiti (for a salary) but never gives do charity, does not.
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CatholicHockey7
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I’m a journalist, and this is a debate that all students in J-school go through. What are our ethical responsibilities as journalists.
My argument is that while journalists, especially those working the news desks, have a moral responsibility to report on things such as poverty, the current business model relies on the relationship with consumers and advertisers. Most “news” consumers don’t want to hear about poverty. They want to hear about the royal baby or the latest news on Miley Cyrus. They look at the news as nothing more than entertainment to distract them from the real world. So when the media actually does our job, they respond by not reading. When they don’t read the paper or watch the show, advertising revenues go down. As though revenues go down, staff get cut.
And why do staff get cut? Because of the responsibility to shareholders. News organizations, especially papers, are expected to earn roughly 20 percent for their investors. The backwards part? Investors in Apple, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, General Electric, and virtually any other publicly traded company expect only about 8 percent.
Now add the modern consumer, who has so many blogs and channels to watch that he/she can pick to listen to only the news which agrees with his/her individual viewpoint and you have an impotent media.
Do we as journalists have the responsibility to report on the major issues accurately and fairly? Yes. Can we? No. Why not? Because despite the plethora of journalists, no one is paying for us to do our jobs because they hate it when we do.
My argument is that while journalists, especially those working the news desks, have a moral responsibility to report on things such as poverty, the current business model relies on the relationship with consumers and advertisers. Most “news” consumers don’t want to hear about poverty. They want to hear about the royal baby or the latest news on Miley Cyrus. They look at the news as nothing more than entertainment to distract them from the real world. So when the media actually does our job, they respond by not reading. When they don’t read the paper or watch the show, advertising revenues go down. As though revenues go down, staff get cut.
And why do staff get cut? Because of the responsibility to shareholders. News organizations, especially papers, are expected to earn roughly 20 percent for their investors. The backwards part? Investors in Apple, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, General Electric, and virtually any other publicly traded company expect only about 8 percent.
Now add the modern consumer, who has so many blogs and channels to watch that he/she can pick to listen to only the news which agrees with his/her individual viewpoint and you have an impotent media.
Do we as journalists have the responsibility to report on the major issues accurately and fairly? Yes. Can we? No. Why not? Because despite the plethora of journalists, no one is paying for us to do our jobs because they hate it when we do.
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edwest2
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Journalists have an ethical duty to report the news - somewhere. You have the entire internet. As someone who works in the media and someone who knows how daily newspapers are run, I was there in a newsroom in the 1980s of a daily newspaper. I saw a strip of paper that was printing stories as they came in through the various wire services in the correct width to be laid out on a printed page. I asked about how and why certain stories were selected and why certain stories were not. I was told that daily meetings were held to determine what was used and what was cut. Those cut and paste days are gone but journalists have the ability to reach a global audience. I can read Izvestia in English, the same with China Daily.
So some teenager can write a blog about his day and trained journalists can’t write about something other than sports or celebrities? I understand the relationship between stories, maintaining readership and maintaining advertising dollars.
aim.org/
translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://izvestia.ru/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dizvestia%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D675
chinadaily.com.cn/
Of course, proper journalistic procedure must be followed. Fact checking must occur. Rumors must be avoided. And while it’s true that people can pick and choose among news sources to get “what they want to hear,” one pillar of a strong democracy is an educated public.
It doesn’t have to be a constant diet of rapes, murders and the latest about some Hollywood types. It should include direct from the source news about the current STD epidemic in this country, for example, and stories about normal people that do normal things, along with stories about how just walking can improve your health, not dark, darker and darker still, with heavy doses of death, scandal and misery.
Life - your life - is not all about that. We live in a 360 degree world. A look at the bright side, reported accurately, would be nice.
Peace,
Ed
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CatholicHockey7
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I agree with you Ed that we have the whole internet, but then come two important problems: sourcing and credibility.
Most blogs don’t have enough credibility because of the nature of the internet (the State Farm ad being complete satire). And without that credibility you can’t get the people you need to write a true, journalistic piece. I experienced this as a student. Sometimes I couldn’t even get coaches to talk to me even though they knew I worked for the school paper because I’d been covering their team all season long!
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St_Francis
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The question in the poll is different from the question in the title of the thread, so I didn’t vote because the question is too vague.
As to the media, My answer would be no.
Why? Because it is the job of each person to help the poor, and so each person should look for poor people to help. The Church should assure that needs elsewhere are publicized through the Church structure.
Everyone is supposed to be Catholic and obey the King of Heaven and Earth. Everyone should be involved.
As to the media, My answer would be no.
Why? Because it is the job of each person to help the poor, and so each person should look for poor people to help. The Church should assure that needs elsewhere are publicized through the Church structure.
Everyone is supposed to be Catholic and obey the King of Heaven and Earth. Everyone should be involved.
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edwest2
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Well, it’s time to think outside of the corporate box. Get a few trusted names in your corner. And what about sourcing? I’ve called the US Government, which usually takes six tries to get to the sub-sub-sub-sub department I actually need to talk to which may have a name that no human being could possibly have thought of.
Start small. I’m not saying relying solely on positive feedback from people working in the business, but getting together with some like-minded individuals and putting together a page a day. Perhaps a fellow journalist could put in a call for you to establish your bona fides. In other words, “Yes, he or she is a real journalist.”
Peace,
Ed
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gracepoole
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Every form of business has ethical requirements, whether or not they’re met. And those individuals involved in various businesses have ethical choices to make on a daily basis. We can finesse the OP’s question, but I think it’s worthy of consideration.
Actually, the media is owned by an extremely small number of corporations and each has ethical guidelines for employees. We could analyze the individual choices of those who work for cigarette companies, but we could also analyze the policies of the companies themselves. “Control” is most definitely not shared by millions.
I find it…weird that CAF posters often seem to try to locate some kind, any kind of reason to argue that feeling charitable toward those in third-world poverty (or feeling disappointment in those of positions of power who refuse to confront this plague, like news corporations) is problematic because giving directly to those in need doesn’t work, because there are plenty of Americans living in poverty, because it’s an individual moral concern, because… Why the need for excuses?
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pnewton
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I agree with that. I would add that my objection is along the same lines. Just like making excuses, trying to judge the moral obligations of others en masse is also an avoidance of the real issue, which as always, what ***I ***am doing for those most in need.
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Robert_Sock
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Are we living in a Brave New World? When crimes against humanity get ignored, intentionally swept under the rug out of view from society as a whole, I believe the answer is, yes! Those controlling the media have a moral obligation to fully inform the public of the extreme poverty that exists in the world today. It’s time that society turns its attention from baseball, football and the meaningless attention payed to pop ‘stars,’ and instead focus on the the huge human tragedy entailed in extreme poverty.
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Ridgerunner
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The problem with this thread is equating poverty with “crime” (presumably on someone’s part) and, having done so, failing to identify the criminals, and having failed to do so, asking what the media ought to do about reporting it. As little regard as I have for most media outlets, I don’t see how they could comply with the proposition in whole, though they might be able to do so in part.
Perhaps they could do it in bits and pieces. The causes of poverty in the world are so diverse that it’s difficult to see how one could make a coherent whole of it. So perhaps the Philippines? There wouldn’t be a Mugabe-like dictator to overthrow in order to even take a first step. There wouldn’t be ineradicable tribal factions like in Somalia. It is my distinct impression that the Philippines suffer from significant economic “imperialism” by Chinese and Japanese. The media could serve a role there. One NEVER sees the media examine the near-total control of industry by Japanese companies, for example. One NEVER sees the media examine the Chinese domination of mercantile enterprise. Yet, if you talk to a Filipino, that’s the first thing he’ll tell you about as a national problem.
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Jozefo
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I see your question has evolved from asking about the media’s moral obilgations, to asking about the moral obligations of those who are controlling the media. Very good.
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Jozefo
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Why paint them as excuses, when in reality the question is flawed?
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Robert_Sock
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It’s ridiculous to me that people could not infer that from the question of the title. Again, it’s the unnecessarily splitting of hairs
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Jozefo
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But people are not mind readers. They can only go by what is written. It’s not splitting hairs when so many things are misunderstood in this imperfect medium, simply out of laziness on some people’s parts when they post questions.It’s ridiculous to me that people could not infer that from the question of the title. Again, it’s the unnecessarily splitting of hairs
At any rate, I’m glad to see you improved your question. It’s more thought provoking now, which is what I think you wanted in the first place - to provoke thought about poverty.
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St_Francis
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I think what you two are seeing is not so much a denial of obligation to the poor but a disagreement on how best to address the problem that all of us agree exists.
I personally see problems with the current system of helping the poor in the US, which I have explained elsewhere. The fact that I reject the insanity of simply pilong more onto a broken system in no way means that I am against helping the poor, and the continual reiteration of this accusation by those who believe in shifting all charitable activity onto the shoulders of the government so that we can be free of seeing, thinking about, or having to deal with actual poor people annoying.
See how annoying the mischaracterization of one’s position is? If you see me and others who disagree with you as more akin to demons than Catholics, you can dismiss what we say with no further thought, without grappling with the issues we bring up. Is that a Christian way to behave?
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edwest2
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- The media can be a powerful force for good in this instance. I think dealing with poverty and helping people get out of it is an important issue.
- Of course, we should help the poor. Jesus was quite clear about that. It could be a little or it could be more. God has given to each of us different resources.
- I believe the best way to deal with the poor that I know of is directly. Not through some organization that’s going to get a cut for administrative costs or whatever. And no, I don’t think the government is the answer, but it can play a role. It would be nice if the media explained, in English, as opposed to government-speak, what is practical for the government to do.
- As far as world poverty, we need to know about legitimate relief agencies, especially Catholic Relief Agencies.
Ed
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livingwordunity
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Why has said that they are against giving a charitable contribution to the poor in third-world countries? How do you know that those who are against the government deciding how our charity dollars should be spent are not themselves already giving a charity on their own? I think you are making the false assumption that no one will give to the poor if the government doesn’t force them. We have limited faith in the government for this because “at times it happens that those who receive aid become subordinate to the aid-givers, and the poor serve to perpetuate expensive bureaucracies which consume an excessively high percentage of funds intended for development.” - Caritas in veritate
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