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A Perfect Storm: Politics, Babies, Bloggers and a Hurricane
It has certainly been a busy — and historic — week for journalists in the United States. We love big stories, and we got them. We love surprises, and we got them.
In Denver, the Democrats nominated the first African-American candidate of a major party, while orchestrating a clockwork convention designed to show unity after a divisive primary campaign.
Barack Obama had hardly given his acceptance speech in a rock-star setting in front of 75,000 supporters before John McCain grabbed the headlines and surprised the world by picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the first woman for a top slot in the GOP’s history.
Oh, yes. A major hurricane bore down on New Orleans. Gustav disrupted the script of the Republican convention, revived memories of 2005′s Katrina and the devastation of a great American city and reminded many of the damage the response to that storm did to the reputation of the Bush administration.
Then on Monday, in a development worthy of a soap opera, the McCain campaign revealed that Palin’s 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was pregnant, in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.
The story raises a number of ethical issues for journalists, which is why I’m writing today.
First, an introduction: I am Reuters’ newly named Editor for Ethics, Innovation and News Values. One of my missions is to lead discussions on ethics and standards wherever journalism is practiced at Thomson Reuters — and the Palin story seems a good place to start. It raises important issues for journalism: the right of public figures’ families to privacy; the mainstream media’s relationship with bloggers and other media; and the relationship between journalists and the people they cover.
And here lies the true problem…in the previous post, 85,000,000,000 divided by 200,000,000 = $425 dollars.
That email probably made the rounds of most of us in the US, and I don’t think that would solve anyones’s problems. But it highlights our current “human” condition, believing everything you read or hear without thinking, and then spreading the word. This applies to politics, economics, or any other conflict where those involved operate as a pair of magnets…if the polar ends agree, they are drawn together by substantial forces. If they disagree, the force to separate is just as powerful in the opposite direction. The world is a complex system without a possible exact solution, and until everyone involved is willing to investigate why their “opponent” feels the way they do…there will be no REAL progress. You may not agree 100%, but understanding that every solution will be a true compromise would be a giant step forward. Every day should be toward trying to understand the root of the problem and the opposite view, not defending the poles.
Is this a wish for Utopia…yep, will it ever happen, nope. But I will die knowing I was not a part of the problem.