The "Horror In Soweto" & Ethical Responsibility

This post will be a bit deductive/inductive/critically analytical, if you will.  I’ll be using various ethical perspectives and one code of ethics in particular to evaluate the case study “Horror in Soweto” (which is on page 212 of the Media Ethics: Issues and Cases” book, if you care to read along). The code of ethics that I will be using is The Communications Council code of ethics, which embodies “respect, integrity, transparency and honesty”.  This code of ethics in particular is associated with social media conduct, I chose to use this code of ethics as my reference point in comparison to this case, because it is relative to my career path (which were the assignment instructions), which is dealing with social media platforms. 

This photo is not my own. All credit goes to proper owner.

In the “Horror in Soweto” case study, we are confronted with various outlooks in terms of morally acceptable journalism tactics.  “On September 15, 1990, freelance photographer Gregory Marinovich documented the killing, by a mob of African National Congress supporters, of a man they believed to be a Zulu spy”.  “Marinovich and Associated Press reporter Tom Cohen spotted the man being led fro Soweto, South Africa, train-station platform by a group armed with machetes and crude spears.  Marinovich and Cohen continued to witness and report as the man was stoned, bludgeoned, stabbed, doused with gasoline and set afire” (page 212). Given this gruesome imagery, I cannot begin to fathom the amount of moral/ethical obligation the reporter must have felt in that instance.  Do you continue reporting regardless of the murder you’re watching?  Do you continue photographing the stages of this mans murder and bring back the pictures to be placed on the front pages of popular news outlets in the States?  Well, he did, and there were two photos in particular that made for a great ethical debate.  One photo, was of the man right before he was going to be stabbed in the head, and the other was of the man on fire.

The Communications Council code of ethics can be pretty helpful in evaluating the ethical considerations of this case study because it deals with having liability for what you say/post and having respect for others.  Although this code of ethics is dealing particularly with social media engagement, we can ask similar questions for this case.  When engaging with social media platforms you should, “always exercise good judgement when posting and be aware that inappropriate conduct can negatively affect your organization, clients and yourself. Always apply the following test: “Would my manager, client or customers be happy to see this content published?” (Communications Council code of ethics, page 3).  Within this case study the main ethical dilemma were the use of the two gruesome photos that were used on the front cover of many news publications back in the States. We can ask questions such as, is this an appropriate image that you would show your children?  Something similar to the “breakfast test”, which is “Which of those photos would help tell the story without ruining everyones breakfast?” (page 214).

Although this code has a few elements that can be used in evaluating the “Horror in Soweto” case it’s ultimately not the one that should be used.  Because this code was made for social media conduct in particular there are components fundamental to print journalism, and photography that it does not cover.  So, although comparisons can be made this case would be better evaluated if the NPPA (National Press Photographers Association) code of ethics was used as the basis of comparison.

There were numerous ethical questions brought up throughout the case, and there are certain ethical theorist that inquire about the concerns of this case. One, is Sissela Bok’s ethical decision making model, which discusses how you feel about the actions, Is there another professionally acceptable way to achieve the same goal that will not raise ethical issue? and how will others respond to the proposed act?  This relates back to the communications council discussion of public vs. private (although not entirely correlated) and whether or not a manager or client would be happy to see this content published.  Another ethical perspective that supplements this case as well as the code of ethics I have chosen is Mills Utility which says to focus on the outcome.  If you’re aware of the backlash that you may contend with due to a certain post, then you probably shouldn’t use it to begin with. 

We can't point the finger at one person in particular; well, perhaps the multitude of editors, but ultimately ethical decision making is formed by the already established moral standings of an individual, so whether it be the photographer, who was just doing his job and got the photos he needed, or the editors from various papers who decided to use one photo over the other, or none at all, was ultimately at the discretion of the individuals perspectives.  Ethical perspectives are subjective, and we can just hope that maybe in the future a collective conscience will change the vast playing field when it comes to right and wrong.