Truth vs Harm
My mother always told me that I should never start a fight, but if I were to find myself in the middle of one, then I should definitively finish it. Today, I noticed that she has failed to mention what would happen if I had started a fight, should I also finish it? Will McAvoy started something, not a fight, but more of an argument in order to prove a point. Was he right or wrong to have the last word? Will McAvoy started his live interview by interviewing Sutton Wall an advisor of Rick Santorum who is running for president. During the interview, McAvoy started to attack Wall, who is a black homosexual man, and was shaming him for working for Santorum, who is racist and homophobic. This purpose behind this attack was to expose what a horrible man Santorum is. Considering his actions were unorthodox and out of context, did McAvoy cross the line with his questions and attacks, and was he wrong to want to have the last word in this interview?
“Media are one of the most important “truth-seeking” institutions. Without practices aimed at truth cooperative human activity breaks down” (Couldry, 2013, p. 16). This quote explains it all, and so, to begin with, let us talk about the core principles of journalism ethics.
According to Aiden White, the director of Ethical Journalism Network, there are five core principles of Journalism: Truth and accuracy, independence, fairness and impartiality, humanity and accountability. Starting off with the first principle, a journalist should always research and state facts. A journalist has to be independent in his judgment and not base his articles depending on his affiliation. following that, the stories should always show somewhat of a balance and not just expose one side of the truth and completely ignore another side. Humanity, a journalist should never try to harm anyone and finally accountability, journalists should learn to hold themselves accountable for whatever they may do, whether it is good or bad.
Will McAvoy did try to get the truth out of Wall, if looked at by a consequentialist approach he was right to do so although the manners he used will be discussed later on, but he did prove on live tv and he did get a confession out of Wall that Sutton is a racist and homophobic man. McAvoy however was not independent, he had a special hatred for Santorum and he wanted him exposed for the man he really is, this was personal to him. Whether he was fair or not is still a question, Sutton truly is a homophobic and racist man, maybe after all his side of the story is canceled due to his beliefs. Wall was attacked by McAvoy, which was very wrong if looked at by a non-consequentialist approach.
Moreover, let us discuss the manner in which Will McAvoy addressed in opponent. The sole purpose of McAvoy was to expose how horrible, racist and homophobic of a man Santorum is by questioning, or even harassing Wall. From a consequentialist approach McAvoy did the right thing. The consequentialist approach is defined by acts that are right or wrong by value of the rightness or wrongness of their consequences in order to benefit for the biggest amount of people. In this case, what McAvoy did is considered right because he exposed Santorum, even if he did harass Wall, his consequences and actions are justified because the greater good in this case is for Santorum to be hated for his racist and homophobic beliefs; in other words, the harassing and exposing Wall can be excused because Santorum will be looked at for what he really is. From a non- consequentialist approach, which is defined by “Ends do NOT justify the means” and “human beings shall never be used or abused to achieve a higher end.” (Ward, 2011, p. 43 -44). Will McAvoy was completely wrong by harassing the interviewee and exposing his life on live television. He went on and on to question and ridicule him just to get a ‘confession’ out of him. He crossed the line and he even admitted it.
Journalists have a job, which is to tell the public the truth, but not in just any way, after all the interviewees are also people with rights and feelings. The fact that Sutton follows Santorum even though he is racist and homophobic may be wrong but exposing him and ridiculing him on live television was not the right way to go. No man with such hatred such be president, hate cannot rule the world, we have seen this on and on again, but any other way of exposing Santorum could’ve worked, such as a hidden camera or even having him during a live interview say all the wrong things for everyone to see.
In a nutshell, I believe Will McAvoy was right for having the last word, even if what he did wasn’t as nice or respectable, but he had to go all way to prove his point. Not ending the interview the way it went would’ve meant that McAvoy did not stand true to his word and beliefs. Considering the times we live in and the amount of racism and homophobia we still have to deal with, the interview should’ve been thought through more carefully so that they won’t be in the hate category as well because that is not what they meant to do.
References
Ethical Journalism Network. (2015, February 19). The 5 Core Values of Journalism [Video file]. Retrieved
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNidQHk5SZs
Couldry, N. (2013). Why Media Ethics Still Matters. In S. J. Ward, Global Media Ethics, Malden, MA; Oxford and Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell., pp. 13–27;
Ward (2011) ‘What is Ethics’ in Ethics and the Media, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 43 -44
