Was Will McAvoy right to insist on having the last word in the interview with Nick Santorum’s assistant?
News is that part of communication that keeps us informed of the changing events, issues, and characters in the world outside. The purpose of journalism is thus to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments. However, the power of the media can also be misused to the extent that the very functioning of democracy is threatened. Some media have been turned into propaganda megaphones for those in power. Other media outlets have been used to incite xenophobic hatred and violence against minorities and other vulnerable groups of people. Journalists now days aren’t really giving their information to the audience as whole, but they’re actually shaping it based on what the audience wants to hear. In the “Newsroom” a TV series, McAvoy and his team make a promise to the USA electorate to reinvent the news. Abiding by the ethical principles of legacy media, they only want to speak of the truth and honesty of a moment. McAvoy also speaks of the importance of introducing and accepting other’s opinions.
McAvoy and his team promise fairness, justice, and truthfulness. But the interview McAvoy had with Sutton Wall, former deputy chief of staff of Republican Senator Rick Santorum’s and a professor of American Studies at the temple university, questioned the promises the team had made. In the interview, McAvoy’s goal in to give the audience the truth and to get answers from Sutton Wall about the flaws of the Republican by putting the interviewee who’s a black heterosexual professor under pressure raised questions. Was Will McAvoy right to insist on having the last word in the interview with Nick Santorum’s assistant?
The core principles of ethical journalism are: truth and accuracy, minimizing harm, fairness and impartiality, humanity and accountability. The values are considered the most important while reporting the news. Truth and minimizing are the main goals of ethical journalism, and as the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) code of ethics states: “Seek Truth and Report It” and “Balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness.” (Page 2). By this being said, what is the fine line between truth and harm?
In the interview, Will’s aim was to provide the truth to the audience and to protect the people from Rick Santorum whom he considered a bully but through out the interview McAvoy was being aggressive, shouting and not giving a chance to the interviewee to answer. However, Will actually disrespected the interviewee, he attacked him by calling him words like “damaged” or “ill” which made us forget about the truth and to focus on what McAvoy promised the audience and what he’s actually doing
Every time Sutton Wall tried to explain himself, he would interrupt him throwing rhetorical questions at him. McAvoy reached a point where he practiced ultimate superiority on Sutton Wall putting him in an inferior position. This is when Wall admits that he couldn’t think of a way in which gay marriage could threaten Santorum’s marriage. His body language portrays the dual in the relationship of power. Even when Wall had the chance to stand up for his dignity, saying that neither his choices, nor his color, nor he can even define him as a person, the interviewer maintained on rejecting this recognition and concluded with a final question to point out that Rick Santorum doesn’t believe in Sutton Wall’s ability as a teacher.
In consequentialist perspective, you should maximize the good or the fairness of an event to the greatest number of people. In this case, exposing Rich Santorum and showing that he’s not only racist but also homophobic would help the society and especially the black people and the homosexuals “Consequentialism aims for maximizing positive outcomes; the greatest amount of good for society” (Ward, 2011). However, in a non-consequentialist perspective “the end does not justify the means” and human rights and the principle of self-respect are the most important points in the deontologist theory “Human beings shall never be used or abused to achieve a higher end” (Wards, 2011). This essentially means that being violent against Sutton Wall and verbally abusing him doesn’t actually justify the aim of Will, exposing Rich Santorum, and is unethical. Thus, McAvoy violated the main principles of the two moral theories in this interview.
To conclude, McAvoy should have found a Golden Mean between saying the truth and exposing Rich Santorum yet respecting his interviewee Sutton Wall. The interviewer should have stopped when he made his point without asking the final question, and also he should’ve let Sutton Wall speak and give his own point of view
References
McAvoy, W. (2013). Will McAvoy’s Apology (The Newsroom) [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrOqjS9ZyA
Wall. (2014). The Newsroom Homosexuality. (W. McAvoy, Interviewer) Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10uIpFWdFwY
McAvoy, W. (2013). Will McAvoy’s Apology (The Newsroom) [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrOqjS9ZyA
Wall. (2014). The Newsroom Homosexuality. (W. McAvoy, Interviewer) Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10uIpFWdFwY
Ward (2011) ‘What is Ethics’ in Ethics and the Media, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 43 -44
Ward (2011) ‘What is Ethics’ in Ethics and the Media, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 38;
White (2015) “The 5 Core Values of Journalism”, https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/who-we-are/5-principles-of-journalism
