#letsdebate

There is a constant debate on whether it’s right or wrong for journalists to intrude into the lives of other people. Janet Malcolm is a journalist and says that, “every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confident man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse”. Here Janet is stating that all journalists are in fact “betraying” their interviewees because they are “preying” on them. Janet’s use of harsh language suggests that journalists are in the wrong for this.

Sometimes to get vital information that may be needed by the government journalists have to “betray” those they are interviewing as such in order to get to the real story to produce the truth. That’s what good journalism is. If we were to look at the Jessica Lal murder case, we can see evidence of this as the accused were ultimately punished in accordance with law because of the valiant effort taken up by the journalists concerned. Therefore, if the journalists hadn’t gone to the efforts of deriving the truth from the criminals then they would still be on the loose and at harm to other people. The blame should not be put on the journalists for this, it’s those who go against the law.

Many journalists have died or been seriously injured from trying to do the right thing by getting vital information for the government. For example, it’s been shown that the number of deaths of journalists have “nearly doubled” in the last year which means that even more journalists have been going to extremes of trying to derive information and they are putting their life on the line for their job and country. This means that journalists are going to extremes to get information that does not make them a bad person like Janet’s explanation makes journalists out to be by the qualities that she listed.

In saying this not all journalism involves betrayal as such, many journalists are very respectful to those they are interviewing. An example of peaceful journalism could be the journalists that were interviewing the public at this year’s grand opening to the New Year in London.  Here the journalists were interviewing those they had permission from so there was no “preying” on the public involved here. The people being interviewed knew that their conversation with the journalist would be broadcasted on live television which goes against what Janet stated because if they were doing anything wrong, why would it be broadcasted?