Was Will McAvoy right to insist on having the last word in the interview with Nick Santorum’s aid?
McAvoy and his team in the Newsroom promised the USA electorate to reinvent the news, abiding by the ethical principles of legacy media, they took “just”, “truth” and “honesty” as their identity, where rumors and exaggerated news are put aside. They declare democracy emerging from well informed and credible citizens, rather than audience receiving the same repeated order of news content. McAvoy highlights on the importance of accepting other’s opinions. He says that “news is only useful in the context of humanity”, which puts human beings in a position much more elite than just being machines receiving and creating the news.
Truth and accuracy is one of the core principles of journalism. Journalists can’t guarantee truth but they must get the facts right in order to reach professionalism. McAvoy’s mission in the interview was to grant people true information about Santorum’s racism and hetero-sexism, but his blind drive to speak of the unheard voices, ends up turning into a touching hurting debate.
McAvoy wanted to fight in order to prove Rick wrong, so he supplied his argument with relevant facts. Nevertheless, he listed them in a destructive way, where he highlights the term inferior so much that it starts to show in his speech and even in his gesture. For example, he talks about Wall’s sexuality making him less than an American and less than a man and he imposes a superior image of himself as he interrupts Wall with bored hand gestures. Overall these behaviors face humanity which is alongside truth, considered to be one of the essential ethics of journalist. So here comes the question; does McAvoy really have the right to ask in this way?
As the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) code of ethics states: “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). Minimizing harm is one of the main goals of ethical journalism, but there comes another important role as mentioned in the SPJ code, which is “Seek Truth and Report It”. However there is always a fine line between seeking truth and harming others. Every time Sutton Wall tried to explain himself, McAvoy would interrupt him throwing rhetorical questions at him. This not only proved him disrespectful as an interviewer, but also as a journalist who only looks at the judgments supporting his case without him being open to new prospects.
Unfortunately, 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 anchor yet insisted on denying this recognition and again concluded with a final personal question to point out that Rick Santorum doesn’t believe in his ability as a teacher.The presenter ensured that he should have stopped the moment Wall agreed with him but his tongue preceded his rational mind so he ended up harming his guest emotionally . The presenter was unaware of the impact of his words on Will's life, who most probably lost his job that he depends on in order to survive. According to Principle 3.3 of the Code of Professional Ethics for Journalists, a journalist must recognize that legal access to information differs from an ethical justification to publish or broadcast (SPJ, 2014).
If a Consequentialist would be asked to analyze this situation he/she would maximize the good or the fairness of an event to the greatest number of people. In this case, exposing a public figure like Rick Santorum as a racist and a homophobic person is the only good to most people out there from homosexuals, to black people, even Sutton Wall and his family as they would break free from all the rules oppressing them. Whereas, from a Deontologist’s perspective “the end does not justify the means”, which means that using and abusing Sutton Wall to expose the truth about Santorum to the public is an unethical unjustifiable process by itself. Human rights and the principle of self-respect are highlighted and put forward by Deontologists. McAvoy used and abused Wall to achieve a higher end and provide truthful information to the public and he didn’t fulfill ethical principles in every step of the process. Finally, in the virtue ethics, the golden mean which is the right balance between two extremes must be achieved. In this case, McAvoy didn’t abide by the golden mean as he was an extreme Consequentialist.
As a conclusion, McAvoy should have acted more virtuous in this situation. He should have found a middle point (golden mean) between saying the truth, yet respecting the dignity of others. McAvoy should have had apologized from Wall because the harm he has caused him cannot be justified by the main ethical theories in the code.
References;
Journalists, S. o. (2014). SPJ Code of Ethics. Retrieved from SPJ.org: http://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf
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
