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Opinion: Journalists or Gossipers?
The media has been giving the royal couple Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle too much attention that it has infringed on their rights as humans.
They say, too much of anything is a bad thing, well, this explains why the royal couple relinquished their official duties as members of the royal family as of early January. They are hoping to escape the scrutiny of the British media, by planning to move to Canada.
But while finding a place to permanently live, the couple has been followed around by press photographers trying to capture potentially valuable images that can be used for British tabloids. Their lawyers have already warned British news outlets to stop by sending a letter threatening legal action over the purchase and publication of photos of Meghan walking with her infant son, Archie, in a park near their house. The letter also stated that the photographs of the Duchess walking the family's dogs were taken by photographers hiding in the bushes, and that other photographers have also tried to take pictures of the couple through the windows of their house in North Saanich. Some have even set up camp outside the home.
This is not the first time the royal couple has encountered all these paparazzi and the media hoping to take advantage of their private lives. Back when Prince Harry was still engaged to Meghan, media outlets in Britain had written all kinds of unflattering articles about Meghan. In a certain article written by Daily Mail, as soon as you start reading, you will be greeted by a picture of Meghan’s home in L.A. with the cutline “Home sweet home? Prince Harry's new girl, Meghan Markle, grew up in this house in Crenshaw, Los Angeles, a troubled area that had 47 crimes in the past week - including murder”. Then after that, they mentioned that Meghan’s parents were divorced and that both of them have debts and have filed for bankruptcy. A couple of sentences later, the article says that her mother “appears to be one of the defining influences in her daughter’s life”, seemingly implying that Meghan has had bad influences in her life.
And it hasn’t just been Meghan. Prince Harry’s phone was allegedly hacked by media outlets The Sun and The Daily Mirror, that were accused of intercepting voicemail messages even as far back as the 2000s. Prince Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, was also a victim of the British media. She was constantly followed by paparazzi, particularly after her marriage to Prince Charles ended. This led to her death in Paris in 1997, when her car crashed as she tried to escape these paparazzi.
As journalists, our main purpose is to provide the public with news, entertainment, and other sorts of information. Even though these reporters fulfilled their purpose, they committed acts of unprofessionalism and "followed the story" to an extreme, even if it meant violating other people's human rights just to provide "juicy" news which will give them more profit. They call themselves journalists but the way they do things is more like that of a gossiper. So how do gossipers differ from journalists?
Gossipers shame the name of journalists. In a way, they have no reason to do all this stalking and hacking since there is a system called the “Royal Rota” which allows a rotation of royal reporters from British newspapers to attend and report on the royal family's engagements. But due to greed, these paparazzi just have to go on full-on creepy mode with the hacking and stalking. Ugh.
For example, the paparazzi who took their pictures committed harassment and invasion of privacy according to U.K. laws. The definition of harassment is “essentially behaviour that causes another person alarm or distress and it refers to a course of conduct, not a single incident”. In this case, it certainly applies after all of the picture-taking incidents. It is also a type of invasion of privacy because they were trying to take pictures of people inside their house without consent.
The other one is the hackers from Daily Mail and The Sun. It is stated in U.K. law that phone hacking is covered by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). It is an offense for anyone to intercept telephone calls with the exception of the police and security services acting with a warrant from the Secretary of State.
All these are things that gossipers will do just to get their news. They will ignore laws, ruin a person’s reputation, and violate a human’s right to privacy just to get the attention of everybody and reach the news headlines. But journalists are people who follow a set of rules called a journalists’ code of ethics.
In the journalists’ code of ethics, journalism is guided by five core values: The first one is Truth and Accuracy, all facts must be true and accurate and if one cannot corroborate information one should say so.
The second value is Independence: a journalist should be independent and should not take any sides and if he does have a side, one should announce any political affiliations, financial arrangements or other personal information that might constitute a conflict of interest.
The third value is Fairness and Impartiality: a journalist should be fair and the stories one writes must always be balanced and as much as possible be objective.
The fourth value is Humanity: Journalists should do no harm and even if some article that one writes may be hurtful, one should be aware of the impact of their words and images on the lives of others.
The last value is Accountability: A journalist should be ready to take accountability for whatever error he/she makes and must correct and apologize for them sincerely.
They should not forget all of these just for the sake of news because when they do, they lose their identity as journalists and become gossipers. //by Simon Delfinado
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