13.2: Ethics case studies

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Homeowners make a statement about their personal ethics. (Unsplash free-to-use license; Breanna Louise author via source)

The following case studies are taken from the Society of Professional Journalists' Ethics Case Studies website.

The site states the following: "For journalism instructors and others interested in presenting ethical dilemmas for debate and discussion, SPJ has a useful resource. We've been collecting a number of case studies for use in workshops. The Ethics AdviceLine operated by the Chicago Headline Club and Loyola University also has provided a number of examples. There seems to be no shortage of ethical issues in journalism these days. Please feel free to use these examples in your classes, speeches, columns, workshops or other modes of communication."

The most recent three posts are included in full in this chapter. The full list is available on the SPJ's website.

 

1. Kobe Bryant’s Past: A Tweet Too Soon?

WHAT: On January 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant, a former professional basketball player, died at the age of 41 in a helicopter crash in the Los Angeles area along with nine other people, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna. They were on their way from Orange County to Thousand Oaks to participate in a tournament basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy.

Bryant joined the National Basketball Association straight out of high school and won five NBA titles in his career playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. He became one of basketball’s greatest players of all time, surpassing Michael Jordan for third place on the NBA all-time scoring list in 2014. Bryant retired in 2016 and went on to earn an Academy Award in 2018 for Best Animated Short Film.

In July 2003, Bryant was charged with a count of sexual assault involving a 19-year-old woman working at a hotel in Edwards, Colorado. Bryant conceded he was guilty of adultery but said he was innocent of the rape charge. The criminal case was dismissed in 2004, and in 2005 he reached a settlement in a civil suit filed by his accuser.

While the majority of social media praised Bryant after his death, within a few hours after the story broke, Felicia Sonmez, a reporter for The Washington Post, tweeted a link to an article from 2003 about the allegations of sexual assault against Bryant. Sonmez did not add any personal commentary to the tweet, but her post received a lot of backlash, including threats.

Sonmez said she expected to have a large negative response. “I can understand that it would be difficult for people to read that,” she said, “but it’s also difficult, I imagine, for all of the [sexual assault] survivors in the country to see these allegations essentially be erased, which is how I felt in those couple of hours in the newsroom.” Sonmez deleted the tweet later the same day.

Tweets from the public in response said Sonmez’s actions were “insensitive,” “cold hearted,” “heartless” and “show no respect for [Bryant’s] family/friends.”

The next day, a Monday, Tracy Grant, a managing editor at The Washington Post, announced that Sonmez had been placed on administrative leave while the Post reviewed whether her tweets about Bryant’s death violated the newsroom’s social media policy. "The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues," Grant said. Afterward, though, The Washington Post issued a statement in support of Sonmez.

Question: Is there a limit to truth-telling? How long (if at all) should a journalist wait after a person’s death before resurfacing sensitive information about their past?

WHO: The decision-makers in this case are Felicia Sonmez and management at The Washington Post, who have to weigh the possibility that more harm will be caused to the family, friends and fans of Kobe Bryant against the urge to tell the entire story immediately, the constant pressure to increase circulation and to get the full story first, as well as thinking about the organization’s reputation. Additionally, there is pressure from the public who may feel deep sadness for the sudden loss, or from survivors who may see the allegations being “erased.”

The stakeholders include Kobe Bryant, whose legacy is being negatively impacted, as well as his family, friends and fans who have just experienced a very sudden and traumatic event. Although Bryant is no longer present to witness the tweets, one incident in his past is defining who he was as a person moments after his death. Felicia Sonmez leaves little time for those who loved Bryant to mourn his death and the death of the others that were involved in the crash.

Other stakeholders include Felicia Sonmez and The Washington Post, whose reputations are on the line.

WHY: Does a journalist’s dedication to seeking and telling the truth outweigh the possibility of causing more harm to the family, friends and fans of the deceased? Although it is the job of a reporter to tell engaging and credible stories, is there a point at which it is more appropriate for a reporter to back off and leave the story alone in order to give proper privacy, respect and time to those involved?

Minimizing harm entails showing sensitivity when dealing with children, victims of crime or people who are especially vulnerable due to trauma, injury, illness or other factors. Integrity implies providing anyone accused of misbehavior a reasonable opportunity to respond. In this case, Bryant had no way of responding to the resurfacing of accusations from his past misbehavior.

Telling the truth offers readers, viewers and listeners a complete picture of the subject involved, which helps gain a fuller understanding of who that person was. Timeliness is important as well. The timing of Sonmez’s tweets was harmful to many people. But while the timing of the tweets is debatable, the case is a relevant detail in Bryant’s life.

The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics says: “Ethical journalism treats sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect.” This is where this case becomes a double-edged sword; on one hand, respect must be paid toward Bryant and his family, friends and fans; on the other hand, respect must be paid toward survivors of sexual assault. However, SPJ also believes that journalists should “balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort. The pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness.”

If we apply the ethical theory that seeks to achieve “the greatest good for the greatest number,” we can conclude that Sonmez should not have tweeted the link that day.

HOW: Is there a limit to truth-telling? How long (if at all) should a journalist wait after a person’s death before resurfacing sensitive information about their past? Although there should not be a limit to telling the truth, respect and timeliness need to be considered when doing so. If Sonmez had tweeted the link a few days after Bryant’s death, there probably would not have been as much backlash.

— by Lauren Zurcher, University of Denver

 

2. A controversial apology

This case involves ethical issues that can be analyzed from both a journalistic and strategic communications perspective. There are questions of telling the truth, minimizing harm, racial dynamics and preserving the image of one of the nation’s most prestigious journalism schools.

WHAT: Northwestern University is a private institution of higher education in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago. Its journalism school, Medill, has a host of prominent alumni. Its student newspaper, The Daily Northwestern, is independent and student-run.

In November 2019, a campus organization, the College Republicans, invited former U.S. attorney Jeff Sessions to speak. Students gathered to protest. The Daily Northwestern sent reporters and a photographer to cover Sessions’ speech and the protestors.

About 150 people took part in the demonstrations, according to reports by the Northwestern and Chicago newspapers; some of the demonstrators climbed through open windows and pushed through doors of the building where Sessions was speaking.

After photographs of the speech and protests appeared online, some of the participants contacted the newspaper to complain. It became a “firestorm,” said Charles Whitaker, Medill’s dean — first from students who felt victimized, and then, after the Daily apologized for coverage that some students found “traumatizing and invasive,” from journalists and others who accused the newspaper of apologizing for simply doing its job.

The episode contributed to the criticism that today’s college students are overly sensitive and want to be protected from anything that they don’t approve of: “Snowflakes,” in the vernacular. Robby Soave, a columnist for right-leaning Reason magazine (slogan: Free Minds and Free Markets), called it “a sniveling, embarrassing apology.”

“Is this what students at the country’s most prestigious journalism school are learning these days?” Soave wrote. “That self-censorship is the paper’s best practice if someone is offended by what’s happening in the world?”

Some parts of the 700-word staff editorial stood out to critics, such as: “While our goal is to document history and spread information, nothing is more important than ensuring that our fellow students feel safe....”

The critics argued that the first part of that excerpt is a much more important journalistic principle than the last part.

The editorial also said the coverage could have been more sensitive: “We know we hurt students that night, especially those who identify with marginalized groups. According to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, ‘Ethical journalism treats sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect.’”

But the critics, including professional journalists who were Medill graduates, pointed out that the protestors were involved in a public act in a public place. They shouldn’t expect privacy, and if they were concerned about being interviewed, they could always have said no. The coverage was what journalists are supposed to do, they said, and journalists shouldn’t apologize for doing their jobs.

Question: Is an apology the appropriate response? Is there something else the student journalists should have done?

WHO: The decision-makers are the students who run the newspaper, especially its top editor. They also have become major stakeholders, whose reputations — and perhaps even their eventual journalism careers — could be at risk. The protestors are stakeholders, too, as is Northwestern and especially Medill, which has long had a reputation as one of the nation’s leading schools of journalism.

WHY: This is a classic example of the ethical conflict between truth-telling and minimizing harm. In this case, after telling the truth, the student decision-makers sought to atone by attempting to minimize harm.

The Chicago Tribune, in a report written by Dawn Rhodes, the paper’s higher education reporter, quoted Whitaker, Medill’s dean, who cited the pressures the students faced.

In addition to the “firestorm” of criticism from protesters and journalists, Whitaker said, there was the very nature of the contemporary learning environment. “[Y]ou have a group of students who are taking classes in critical race theory, gender studies and who are sympathetic to the notion that media has not always reflected communities of color well,” he said.

“Against that backdrop, they do this soul-searching and they come to an ill-considered conclusion that they have somehow done something wrong by practicing journalism.”

Part of that academic environment, Rhodes wrote, is the “tightrope student journalists traverse in writing about their own classmates and campuses, managing disagreement about the role and responsibilities of journalism, and confronting the historic failure of a majority white industry to fairly cover people of color and minority communities.”

Margaret Sullivan, The Washington Post’s media columnist, quoted Astead Herndon, national political reporter at The New York Times, who said today’s generation of journalists instinctively “care about historically marginalized communities and rethink power dynamics.” Sometimes, Herndon added, “it is playing out in a raw and uninformed way.”

Racial dynamics were at play in the Northwestern case, where many of the protestors and complainers; the newspaper’s editor, Troy Closson; and even Northwestern’s dean are people of color.

“Being in this role,” Closson wrote in a Twitter thread reported by columnist Sullivan, “and balancing our coverage and the role of this paper on campus with my racial identity — and knowing how our paper has historically failed students of color, and particularly black students, has been incredibly challenging to navigate.”

HOW: The newspaper decided an apology was appropriate. And then its editor and others on the staff, battered by the ensuing criticism, explained themselves even further. Closson told columnist Sullivan that, in hindsight, parts of the editorial went too far, and that the original coverage was legitimate and in keeping with journalistic principles. “We covered the protest to its full extent and stand by our reporting,” he said.

So, as a learning experience, perhaps it had been effective. Dean Whitaker, who had been named to that position just six months before this episode, said he understood why the newspaper’s editors “felt the need to issue their mea culpa.

“They were beat into submission by the vitriol and relentless public shaming they have been subjected to since the Sessions stories appeared. I think it is a testament to their sensitivity and sense of community responsibility that they convinced themselves that an apology would effect a measure of community healing.

“I might offer, however, that their well-intentioned gesture sends a chilling message about journalism and its role in society. It suggests that we are not independent authors of the community narrative, but are prone to bowing to the loudest and most influential voices in our orbit.”

As for “the swarm of alums and journalists” who were raging on social media, “I say, give the young people a break,” Whitaker continued. “Don’t make judgments about them or their mettle until you’ve walked in their shoes.”

— by Fred Brown, SPJ Ethics Committee

 

3. Using the Holocaust metaphor

WHAT: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is a nonprofit animal rights organization known for its controversial approach to communications and public relations. In 2003, PETA launched a new campaign, named “Holocaust on Your Plate,” that compares the slaughter of animals for human use to the murder of 6 million Jews in WWII. The campaign centers around the power of emotion, and Lisa Lange, the vice president of PETA communications, stated that “The idea for the effort came from the late Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote: ‘In relation to them [animals], all people are Nazis; for them it is an eternal Treblinka’ — a death camp in Poland” (CNN, 2003). A Jewish PETA member funded the campaign, but this has not lessened the backlash from the Jewish community toward the set of images.

“Holocaust on Your Plate” juxtaposes 60-square-foot visual displays of animals in slaughterhouses with scenes of Nazi concentration camps. Lange, quoted above, explains that the campaign “Is shocking, startling, and very hard to look at. We're attacking the mind-set that condones the slaughter of animals” (CNN, 2003). In 2003, the controversial set of images was released at an exhibit in San Diego, California, and a few months later, a more graphic version was released in Berlin, Germany. The Central Council of Jews in Germany sued PETA in 2004 for the campaign, and in 2009, the German Supreme Court banned the images from the country. In November 2012, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg voted to uphold the previous Supreme Court ruling, which had banned the campaign.

Germany’s PETA group is currently appealing the European Court’s vote to uphold the court ruling, fighting for their right to display their campaign based on the fundamental principles of free speech. The United States Anti-Defamation League and several other American human rights groups continue to condemn the campaign as well.

Question: Is “Holocaust on Your Plate” ethically wrong or a truthful comparison?

WHO: Ingrid Newkirk, the CEO of PETA, ultimately made the decision to release the controversial campaign, and did not address the heated, angry emotions that arose surrounding the images for nearly two years after the campaign’s release in 2003. With her decision to run the PR Campaign, her reputation, as well as the reputation of PETA, is at risk of being negatively affected.

Abraham Foxman, the U.S. Anti-Defamation League national director and a Holocaust survivor, is one of many members of the American Jewish community who were highly offended by PETA’s campaign.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany represents another sector of the international Jewish community that took great offense to the campaign, suing PETA in 2004 with the support of several human rights groups.

Germany’s Supreme Court became involved in the case in 2009, banning the campaign from the country, and the European Court of Human Rights’ decision in 2012 to uphold the ruling is still being fought by PETA.

Consumers of media messages, both in the United States and Germany, also play a role in the case, as their perception of “Holocaust on your Plate” images greatly affect their view of PETA and the organization’s main goals. As consumers, the decision on how the case is handled will be a deciding factor on whether or not to support the organization.

WHY: A Public Relations representative for PETA, alongside the CEO of the company, justified the campaign by describing it on CNN as “The very same mind-set that made the Holocaust possible — that we can do anything we want to those we decide are 'different or inferior' — is what allows us to commit atrocities against animals every single day.” In these regards, PETA argues that it is making its argument based upon principles of truth. PETA essentially claims that its campaign, although provocative, uses a comparison relating the murder of Jews and animals in a truthful and justified manner.

When examined under a deontological lens, it is arguable that PETA’s PR campaign has done nothing wrong — protected under freedom of speech, PETA’s communications team and CEO claim their campaign is legal and ethically sound, since it is rooted in fact and historical data, both from the Holocaust and slaughter house records. PETA argues that the comparison between the murder of Jews and animals is justified, due to the inherent and quantifiable nature of the slaughtering of innocent lives. However, when considering the case by applying the principles of deontology, the answer could also be argued in simpler, contrasting terms: the mass murder of millions of humans cannot, and should not be compared to a chicken or pig, and is inherently wrong.

This case can also be considered from a teleological perspective, placing the argument on a different plane for ethical discussion. There are two main outcomes that may arise from this case: 1) PETA’s campaign spreads its pathos-driven message on animal rights successfully, limiting the number of animals consumed by humans, or 2) The campaign angers audiences to a degree that PETA loses the respect and trust that is needed for any form of audience support to ensue. Thus far in the case, the second consequence seems more likely, as the overly emotional, insensitive campaign has not motivated people, but for the most part driven them away.

Germany’s High Court stated in 2009 that the “Holocaust on a Plate” made "The fate of the victims of the Holocaust appear banal and trivial.” The consequences of conveying human suffering to a human audience, whether or not they are rooted in truth, may cause more harm than overall good.

HOW: While PETA’s claims may be justified, and the comparison between the murder of humans and animals deemed quantifiable, the harm caused by the campaign overrides the intended message of the PR plan, and should not be used. A mix of legal questioning, high emotional ties, and extremely poor taste make this an ethical case of high stakes and varied opinions, however a decision remains clear: PETA’s “Holocaust on a Plate” is ethically wrong. The mass-murder of millions in a catastrophic historical event should not be utilized as a communication tool to gain support for one’s organization. The comparison, while arguably similar in quantifiable terms, is disgustingly insensitive and takes advantage of others' suffering to make a point.

PETA should utilize a different strategy to convey their message. The CEO of PETA will receive better press, and the overall reputation of the already controversial organization will improve. Stated backlash from numerous human rights groups and the Anti-Defamation League, as well the surely unstated unease of many audience sectors, is not worth a strong emotional response that could drive audience support of PETA.

DECISION: The “Holocaust on a Plate” PR campaign is ethically wrong: a mass-murder of millions should not be utilized as a communication tool to gain support for one’s organization. It should not be used to convey PETA’s message, no matter how strong the emotional argument.

— by Jill Hamilton, University of Denver

 

Ethics case study assignment

Select one of the case studies published here or on the SPJ Ethics Case Studies website and answer all of the question prompts in a Word document to be submitted in your learning management system.