Week 10 response

The question I had asked previously were:

1. By surreptitiously publishing stories on Illegal activities, does the investigative reporter violate privacy, regardless of the content?

2. By airing graphic content involving the deaths of individuals, does the reporter violate the dignity of the victim and their families?

3. How do we toe the line between getting the truth out and respecting those that are aggrieved?

Almost 40 years ago, Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon papers detailing Nixon’s expanding war in Vietnam by revealing targeting data in Laos and Cambodia. To many, Ellsberg was a hero, standing up to a corrupt administration that sanctified the invasion of additional countries in a seemingly unwinnable war. Today the situation is strikingly similar. Julian Assange, director of the secretive Wikileaks digital activist site has leaked numerous reports on the conduct of the current “War on Terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan. The information given by the site is informative and highly relevant to the digital format of participatory democracy. The site does inspire several objection from me. What I must say is that while the freedom of the press is fundamental to a functional society, the manner which the information is presented today and the public’s reaction is most disturbing.

The most controversial video Assange’s group has released is the gun camera footage of an American Apache gunship firing upon and killing a crowd of eighteen civilians including two Reuters journalists. Despite the horrific losses and damage inflicted upon the helicopter’s ground unit in the days before, the conduct of the pilots and gunners was both unbecoming and inhumane of uniformed personnel. Yet, while this footage is being aired over the web the fact that the victim’s families and their dignity are never taken into consideration. This horrifies me. Today I viewed this footage on, of all things, a talk show-esque seminar with Assange personally attending. The fact that this file was shown on such a platform instead of a more solemn environment is a testament to how society views death from a world away.

I personally would not have shown this in a theater and have had a celebrity crow about his accomplishment. I would have sought the approval of the aggrieved families first, as the images of their loved ones would be viewed by masses of anonymous strangers. Pending approval I would have ushered the crowd in a bare area, shown the footage with an explicit message of victim support and ushered the crowd out, leaving the viewers to form their own questions. We must always understand that while truth and integrity are virtues that we can all abide by, we must never forget those that have suffered and died in incidents such as this. To be a true reporter we must respect each others common humanity instead of viewing death as an offensive abstract.

Tags: Human Dignity, wikileaks