Truth Vs Harm

Majed Zein

In an interview discussing a candidate in the US politics, Will McAvoy hammered the interviewee on the candidate’s personal opinions and statements. As a reporter who promised to present to his viewer all the truth and nothing but the truth, his action was driven from the right place. Will McAvoy’s job is to find the truth and the facts and broadcast it fully to the public for them to make their truest decision in the voting procedure. Although it may be argued that some parts of the truth don’t need to be highlighted, McAvoy insisted on revealing all the facts. To a certain extent, the reporter put his personal needs and interests ahead of the public’. By pushing the interviewee to answer questions that he may not even have answers for in order to make a point that he personally finds necessary for the public to understand. In order to achieve his goal, he found it collateral to insult the interviewee in order to reach the point, thus the interviewee was personally disrespected. Considering the interviewer’s perspective, his aim was to highlight all sides of the subject political member of the public. In order to reach that target, maybe the reporter would have invited the subject himself without adding a third party to the equation. Another alternative for such a case could be to have short ended questions with the interviewee and reaching the point without any personal references that could offend the interviewee personally. McAvoy may have reached his point with the last question, but that doesn’t completely justify the method he chose to go by since it added an external party and caused personal harm and disrespect for. The interviewee’s tempered reaction to the reporter shows how he was cornered to justify the actions of another man with the interviewer clearly stated he disagreed on. McAvoy should’ve realized the line he crossed and focused on the facts.