On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 1:35 PM, Joe Coughlin <[email protected]>wrote:
> Yeah, Gawker simply was not given a clear reason why they should honor > the blackout. Since a blackout on a clear news story is an > extraordinary thing, it required more than a request for professional > courtesy and deference here. > > On 12/19/12, Joe Hass <[email protected]> wrote: > > Gawker's explanation in the above post, along with the reporting that > > occurred after the fact (that the captors basically wanted to do a > > prisoner exchange) gives credence to the idea that reporting this was > > not a bad idea. I am generally disinclined to support a news blackout > > without a very solid reason, and the folks at NBC seemed to simply > > operate under the idea that just because they want something, it was > > going to happen. > I agree with both of the Joes here. I don't think we can afford to say that agreeing with a news blackout is always unethical; we can all generate scenarios, and actual past examples, when it was a good idea. But for it to be appropriate for a news operation to agree to not report actual news, there should be specific reasons given for why it is necessary, not just a general rule that "we don't report on hostages" or "missing journalists". I suspect part of the knee jerk request for a blackout is the desire for some room to maneuver in the case of some kind of payoff or exchange. I forget in which case in recent years a journalist was said to have escaped from captivity after some months or years - there was the presumption, or maybe just the possibility, that he had in fact been ransomed for either money or some other exchange. Of course if that was my friend or loved one I would want to have all of the maneuvering room I could get for just that reason, but I am not sure that trumps the real and significant news value of both the kidnapping and the potential payoff. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
