Archive for March 8th, 2008
the MarketWatch Guy on Harry’s Media Betrayal
Jon Friedman of MarketWatch has stated the obvious. Prince Harry was betrayed by the media and it sets a bad precedent.
All too often, I hear about how awful the media is– how it’s too intrusive at times and not enough at others, how its liberal bias is out of control, and how unethical its members can be. I agree with all of this, particularly in the case of Prince Harry. I can’t see how Harry’s location in the Middle East was of any pertinence to the general public. As a student journalist, lately I’ve been struggling with the issue of how far to take the news. At what point is news no longer news, and just fodder for prurient interest? Especially in the wake of the digital revolution, I find that news has not only breached entertainment (an issue within itself), but has pushed further into the realm of obscenity. The classic example being that of Arthur Ashe and USA Today, which broke the news of his status as HIV positive. There was no need for the public to know– he was no longer playing tennis and had remained out of the public eye for over a decade when editor Gene Polincinski made the decision to go to press with the news.
“I wasn’t then, and I am not now, comfortable with being sacrificed for the sake of the public’s ‘right to know,’” wrote Ashe in a later editorial. I have to agree with Ashe, who personifies the victim of news values gone astray, and can’t help but think of Harry’s safety sacrificed for the ‘the public’s right to know.’
