Jeff Sonderman of Poynter points out that there were several journalistic issues about this story: "Was the 911 audio sensationalistic, or valuable reporting? Does a teenage caller deserve more sensitive treatment? Was it right to embed the audio on the news website’s homepage, rather than deeper in the site, so readers would not be confronted by it?"
However, the main question is: How much of a role does/should the audience have in what gets published? What is the role of journalists; to cater to the audience or to simply publish what they think is necessary? The Free Press eventually published it despite Facebook comments. Should they have withheld the audio or not?
I don't understand why this woman posed the question to her readers on facebook if she wasn't going to heed their advice.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the poynter article picked and chose which comments it posted, but it seems like many more readers gave impassioned reasons for not wanting the 911 call posted and only two readers gave half-baked responses for why they thought it should be posted. Maybe asking your readers for advice on how you should report the news is asking for a slippery slope, especially if you are going to ignore it!
I definitely agree with Mali in this circumstance. If you don't want to hear your readers' opinions then you really shouldn't ask. However, journalism is so different in today's world. We've talked before about how today's journalism is not the journalism of even 20 years ago. With twitter and blogs, anyone can weigh in on pretty much any issue. If I were in The Free Press's position I would not have asked my audience their opinion and I would have just written my story. However, they did ask the audience's opinion, so they shouldn't be upset with backlash.
ReplyDeleteNow from the audience's point of view, I think The Free Press should not have posted the audio especially after the backlash. They could potentially have lost many readers who feel as though The Free Press didn't take their opinions into consideration, as most readers were against publishing the audio. Had they simply posted the audio without asking the opinion of readers, I don't think it would've been as big of a deal if people disagreed with it, but after asking they really did create a slippery slope for themselves.