“I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”

When it comes to Sony’s “The Interview” (last years crazy controversial film), the decision to produce a film with the plotted execution of a dictatorial leader in a country that already has less than great relations with the United States, and then to present this film as a comedy on top of that, obviously poses some ethically based questions. But, we aren’t going to focus on how ethically questionable the film it self was, because well, that would take many days, and many post and lots of coffee. Instead, I want to delve in to the way Sony handled the situation of releasing/not releasing/dealing with threats conundrum.

 Ultimately, Sony ended up delaying the release of the film due to threats received by a hacker group (known as The Guardians) who threatened to expose emails, personal information and, oh yeah, blow up theaters which decided to play the film. So, did Sony do the right thing in delaying release of the movie? On the surface, yes of course, when threatened by acts of homicide wouldn’t you stop your initial plans? But, if we flip how we look at this, we can argue that Sony deciding to not show the film when they intended, due to the threats received, this looks like a pretty acceptable case of freedom of speech being thrown out the window because someone doesn’t agree with what we have to say, now that doesn’t seem acceptable, does it? Viewing the situation from that lens, was it ethically sound for Sony to cancel "The Interview"? I’d have to say that given our society’s implementation and support of upholding an American’s freedom of speech under our first amendment this was a not so sound decision because Sony forfeited their rights due to an external opinion. Now, this is just one way to look at it, of course there are many things to be considered within this situation, so perhaps it’s safe to go with a pluralistic view. There are competing values present in the situation of “The Interview”; such as, North Korea's anger (rightfully so) at the film for how degrading it is towards their country, and the fact that the U.S. felt it was okay to produce a film that depicted the murder of another country’s leader. And of course, we have America’s view that we have a right to present our thoughts and speech in a multitude of ways, despite popular agreement or not, kind of like a “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (Evelyn Beatrice Hall) attitude.  
When it comes to free speech you wouldn’t expect there to necessarily be an ethical component attached to it, because freedom of speech is supposed to allow individuals to relay their opinions, and thoughts without judgement and censorship but, I guess in some cases there can be ethical attachments depending on how enormous the audience the person/organization is relaying the message to.  Let’s look at Sony’s decision to create a film of this nature in terms of Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance.  This ethical perspective “asks decision makers to examine the situation objectively from all points of view”, now, it appears that Sony did consider this task, and still made the decision to create and had intentions of showing the film, they just chose to disregard the opinions of those who were against this film being made.  But again, in American culture we uphold the right to speak freely, meaning we present our thoughts and opinion in various mediums free of being restricted by unpopular opinion.

In an Op-Ed piece by Aaron Sorkin in The New York Times he brought forth probably one of the most overlooked realities of the hack on Sony systems in the midst of “The Interview” being released, Sorkin stated, “The Guardians just had to lob the ball; they knew our media would crash the boards and slam it in. First, salaries were published. Not by the hackers, but by American news outlets.” The American public would have known nothing of this hack into Sony systems if the American reporters hadn’t dug up and printed the hacked information themselves onto their news outlets. The ethical component attached to this reality was that these news outlets, decided that damaging information was “newsworthy” and needed to be printing, knowing that they would be the ones providing the information to place other in harm. Clearly ignoring Mills Utility Principle, which is to focus on the outcome; the journalist who decided to run with their new found information did not think about the danger in releasing information such as social security numbers, addresses or other personal information. Our journalist seem to have disregarded most ethical standards and will publish what sells for their paycheck. And what exactly is “newsworthy” about potentially putting individuals lives at risk, tell me more about how this is informative to the masses. We were supposed to be worried about hackers spreading the information around and potentially harming us, but instead we took it into our own hands and shared the information first, because newsworthy in our society seems to have a different meaning then it once had.

“Wouldn’t it be a movie moment if the other studios invoked the NATO rule and denounced the attack on Sony as an attack on all of us, and our bedrock belief in free expression?”, stated Sorkin. It would have been quite the site to see if something like this happened, instead of our journalist running to be active members on the destructive side of the net. When it comes down to the most ethical concerns, it looks like the most attention should be directed to our internal priorities and not so much what others are doing.

Ethical Standards in Journalistic Writing

When it comes to the story published by Rolling Stone, written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, about the UVA rape allegations, there are definitely ethical standards in question.  Without a doubt, the basic code of ethics for journalism was not followed in the laying out of this story.  The lack of fact-checking played a huge part when it comes down to determining whether or not Rolling Stone followed the code of ethics established for journalist.  When the victim, Jackie’s, story came into question as not having matched up with stories that the fraternity was bringing forward, in terms of a party having been thrown, the name of her date and his affiliation with the fraternity - or him existing at all - all made Rolling Stone look very ill-educated in what acceptable journalism looked like.  For a journalist, the core principal of writing a story is to be as objective as possible, which relies on hearing both sides of the story and writing a piece the equally reflects the issue from both perspectives, doesn’t judge, and allows for a clean cut of the situation being reported on. Rolling Stone did not follow this technique, so on an ethically expected level, yes - there is cause for ethical concern.

In terms of Rolling Stone reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, having adequately served her source, Jackie, I would have to say that although there were good intentions behind writing the story, she ultimately failed in her attempt because she did not follow the journalist code of ethics.  Sabrina wanted to bring attention to an issue that is extremely prevalent in our society.  Clearly this reporter, and editor were not abiding by Mills Utility principle, which begs to look at the outcome associated with completing a certain task.  If the Rolling Stone team had looked ahead and kept in mind the possible backlash, questioning, and lack of information that they used to write and publish this story, a lot of what’s happened could have been avoided.  It’s true, if the reporter had taken just a little more time to gather information and inquire deeper into those who Jackie mentioned than maybe their article would have been even stronger and would have been able to withstand the backlash it received, because they would have had a credible more objective piece.  But sadly, after having been criticized for the lack of information and accuracy in their published article Rolling Stone stating that their trust in jackie was misplaced, not only discredits Jackie’s claim altogether, but after putting this young woman story in the public eye, lacking all the information possible, and then abandoning her and her story, was not a respectable move on behalf of Rolling Stone.  Rape is a serious topic, and perhaps, as mentioned in Maya Dusenbery’s blog post, it’s a topic that should be left out of the objective realm of writing since there are so many outlooks and beliefs about the act.  Following the idea of Pluralism, which essentially says there are multiple competing values and not one ultimate value, there are certain topics that just can’t be broken down or perceived through an objective lens.  When you have a topic, such as rape, where the victim, the perpetrator, social norms, personal value, and morals are affected it seems like a topic that is almost impossible to restrict to an objective view.  To turn rape into an objective view, for me, discredits just how serious a topic it is.

Now, as we continue our discussion on ethical situations, within the entire series of events that unfolded since the release of the Rolling Stone article, other actions can be brought into question as ethical or not as well.  Charles C. Johnson, who decided to take it upon himself and leak Jackie’s personal information online, shattered a ton of ethical obligations, not just journalistic ones.  Yes, Jackie did agree to sit down and be interviewed for the Rolling Stone story, but no, that does not mean she has relinquished her right o privacy in some extent.  And not at all does that give the right of some attention-seeking “internet-troll” to leak Jackie’s personal information online.  An individuals right to privacy should always be respected no matter what the circumstances.  Jackie’s story should have definitely been fact checked before being published; and this is not at all to discredit her claims and recollections of what happened the night that she was attacked, it just makes for a stronger argument, so that if her story is attacked (which is was, due to the lack of fact-checking) the publishers can at least say that they have heard her story, and have in fact contacted and talked to all involved in order to make for a more compelling argument, perhaps on Jackies case.  Fact-checking doesn’t mean “we don’t believe you” it means, we need to have all the information possible so if we are questioned, or ‘new’ information is brought up, we can say, we know/knew/are aware/ and have done that, it just makes for a stronger story, in the journalism world at least.  Also, if they had fact checked in the first place,  they probably wouldn’t have had to abandon Jackie at all when s*** hits the fan.

When a story is called into question, who should shoulder the “burden” of transparency?  Ultimately I would have to say the reporter.  Although after the story leaves the reporters desk, and undergoes the eyes of the editors, the reporter is charged with the responsibility of having done proper research and accurate fact-checking before presenting the final product to their editors.

Within the series of events that unfolded since this articles release, there have been questions to whether or not “activism journalism” could be a possible thing to flourish and work within the industry.  The reporter wanted to make a statement about rape culture within American universities, and while using her article on Jackie as a foot in to such a topic, ended up with ridicule from the upset journalism community.  The idea of activism journalism holds certain ethical problems, because one, journalism in itself holds its own code of ethics to be followed, and two, activism (the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about social or political change) doesn’t use an objective lens but a persuasive one, to make you think a certain way.  So while the idea is interesting, it ultimately wouldn’t make much since if we’re abiding by the ethical codes of these two realms.  Activism should be done with a persuasive style and the freedom to be bias, whilst journalism needs to abide by its code which calls for an objective lens.  Ethics is a complex topic and idea to grasp, and while forever the core of most issues in the world, it’s still makes for an interesting dinner topic……and maybe the loss of a few friends along the way.