Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson
Lecture Builders
Chapter 15
Lecture Builders
9/11 and the Falling Man photo
The only chapter opening vignette in the book that still remains from the first edition of Mass
Communication: Living in a Media World is the story of Richard Drew’s disturbing “falling man” photo.
The story told in the vignette has changed over the years as our understanding of the meaning and what
is depicted in the photo has changed. One article that has had a huge influence on how we understand
that photo is Tom Junod’s 2003 Esquire article “The Falling Man.” As of this writing Esquire had the
article available here:
• http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/
More on Photos from 9/11
• http://time.com/4453467/911-september-11-falling-man-photo/
NOTES: JOURNALISM AND PATRIOTISM: Journalist and press critic Bill Kovach, in a speech given to the
Organization of News Ombudsmen, asks the question, “Are you an American first, or are you a
journalist?” It’s a question that he doesn’t really like. In reply, he says, “I believe it is vital to the interest
of the journalist and the public alike that we engage in an urgent, forceful, and consistent campaign to
educate the public with the knowledge that in a democratic society the journalist is, in fact, exercising
the highest form of citizenship by monitoring events in the community and making the public aware of
them and their import, by skeptically examining the behavior of people and institutions of power, by
encouraging and informing forums for public debate.”
Sissela Bok
Read about ethicist Sissela Bok’s moral analysis of lying in private and public life:
• http://infed.org/mobi/sissela-bok-on-lying-and-moral-choice-in-private-and-public-life–an–
amplification/
NOTES: I first discovered Bok and her model through Philip Patterson’s and Lee Wilkins’ excellent book
on media ethics, Media Ethics: Issues and Cases. Bok’s model is one that students have a fairly easy time
following, and it is simpler to explain than the more complex Potter Box (which I do cover in my majors-
only ethics class).
VIDEO HINT: Bill Moyers has a good interview with Bok on the video World of Ideas II: Great Thinkers:
Sissela Bok; WNET New York and WTTW Chicago.
Who Gets Fired for Fabrication?
In addition to the scandal surrounding Stephen Glass’s many fabrications, that same year
brought questions about the truthfulness of the work of two popular Boston Globe columnists, a white
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
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Lecture Builders
man and an African-American woman. Both writers faced allegations of having fabricated characters in
their columns.
Patricia Smith resigned from the Boston Globe after being asked to do so by the editor. The
winner of numerous writing awards during her eight years at the Globe, Smith admitted she had simply
made up names and quotes in some of her columns. In her farewell column, she apologized to her
readers:
“From time to time in my metro column, to create the desired impact or slam home a
salient point, I attributed quotes to people who didn’t exist. I could give them names,
even occupations, but I couldn’t give them what they needed most—a heartbeat. As
anyone who’s ever touched a newspaper knows, that’s one of the cardinal sins of
journalism: Thou shall not fabricate. No exceptions. No excuses.”
That same summer, another Boston Globe writer came under fire. Mike Barnicle, a long-time
columnist for the paper and one of its best-known writers, came under suspicion for a number of
reasons. In one case, jokes that had appeared in George Carlin’s book Brain Droppings also showed up,
unattributed, in Barnicle’s column. Barnicle denied that he had read Carlin’s book, yet it was soon
pointed out that he had reviewed the book for a local television station. He was left in the
uncomfortable position of having to either admit that he had lied about not reading the book or confess
that he had given a rave review to a book he hadn’t read.
Barnicle was originally given a lengthy suspension from the paper rather than being fired, largely
because he was popular with readers. But then a second fabrication was discovered. Several years
earlier, Barnicle had written a touching column about two boys—one black, one white—who shared a
hospital room while they were being treated. When the black child died, Barnicle wrote, the white
parents gave the black parents $10,000. In preparing to reprint the article, Reader’s Digest fact checkers
investigated the story but found no one at any Boston hospital who could remember such a case taking
place. After this became public knowledge, Barnicle resigned from the Globe. (Barnicle later moved to
hosting radio commentary on WTKK in Boston; being a regular guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program;
and writing for a number of different publications, including the Boston Herald, Time magazine, and
Huffington Post. Since leaving newspaper journalism, Smith has been a successful poetry writer and
performer.)
In addition to the shame of dealing with two ethical lapses in one summer, the Globe also had to
confront charges that it had been harsh with Smith, a black woman, while giving Barnicle, a white man, a
second chance. Brill’s Content, a media criticism magazine, even suggested that problems with Smith’s
columns had been ignored for several years because confronting them would have forced editors to
address similar charges that had been leveled against Barnicle.
Jayson Blair
You can read more about the Jayson Blair case at American Journalism Review:
• http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3020
NOTES: The Jayson Blair case received an enormous amount of attention when it broke because he was
working at the New York Times and because editors had apparently ignored a number of warning signs
that there were problems with his reporting. His case has been compared to that of Janet Cooke,
discussed in the Washington Post section of Chapter 6: Newspapers, and Stephen Glass, discussed later
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
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Lecture Builders
in this chapter. The most important lesson to be learned from this case is looking at how the New York
Times responded to it. With the Glass case, the interesting issue was how the fact-checking process
failed. For the Smith and Barnicle cases, the issue comes down to preserving the paper’s investment in a
popular writer. But students should understand that the real ethical issues with these cases concern the
media’s response to the problems. There are no ethical dilemmas when it comes to what these
reporters did. Their behavior was flat-out wrong.
When Is Deception by Reporters Acceptable?
There’s been quite a fuss made recently about a journalist from an alternative news publication.
This alt-journalist called a conservative politician on the phone and pretended to be someone the
politician would feel comfortable talking to. The alt-journalist then took the material from his ill-gained
interview and used it to embarrass the politician. Once the interview was published, the Society of
Professional Journalists issued a statement about how unethical the deception was. Meanwhile, the rest
of the news media talked on and on about the deception, and the original prankster got a big laugh over
all the attention he gained by flouting journalistic convention.
You would be excused if you thought I was talking about how radical journalist Ian Murphy,
editor of the Buffalo Beast, impersonated billionaire conservative political activist David Koch in order to
get an embarrassing interview with Republican Wisconsin governor Scott Walker during the 2011 lead-
up to the recall campaign against the governor. And you would be right.
1
But this could also describe a similar situation that took place more than 20 years ago.
In the spring of 1990, Arizona governor Jan Brewer, then a state senator, proposed a bill that
would require the labeling of record albums that portrayed sexual content in a violent context, violence,
Satanism, murder, morbid violence, or the use of illegal drugs. It would also have made it a crime to sell
these offensive albums to minors.
David Koen, music reviewer for the Phoenix-area alternative newspaper New Times, taped a
series of interviews with the senator while pretending to be a columnist from the Mesa Tribune, a local
conservative daily newspaper.
Using Senator Brewer’s recorded comments from the taped interviews, Koen constructed a rap
tape based on the group W.A.S.P.’s song “F*** Like a Beast.” He then played this tape over a sound
system at noon at the state capitol. For several weeks, stories about the conflict continued to surface
across Arizona and national media. The fuss finally died down when Brewer withdrew her bill from
consideration.
2
SECRET 4 – Journalists occasionally “go undercover” in order to collect news about people who
are breaking the law or abusing the public trust; sometimes they even win awards for the stories that
1
Jim Romenesko, “SPJ Scolds Buffalo Beast for Call to Wisconsin Governor,” Poynter, February 23, 2011,
www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/120621/spj-scolds-buffalo-beast-for-call-to-wisconsin-governor/; Peter
Wallsten, “The Blogger Behind the Scott Walker Prank Call,” Washington Post, February 23, 2011,
voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/the-blogger-behind-the-scott-w.html; Ezra Klein, “What a Prank Call
Proves About Wisconsin,” Washington Post, February 23, 2011, voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra–
klein/2011/02/what_a_prank_call_proves_about.html.
2
Ralph E. Hanson, “F*** Like a Beast: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s First Brush With National News,” Living in
a Media World, April 28, 2010, ralphehanson.com/blog/archive_10_01.html#042810_brewer.
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
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Lecture Builders
come out of this impersonation. (Think back to Chapter 13 and the story about Food Lion v. ABC.) Much
less often they go undercover in order to create a satirical story to draw attention to a particular issue.
The punkings of Governors Brewer and Walker and the subsequent media agitation over them
serve as a great reminder of Secret Four—Nothing’s new: Everything that happened in the past will
happen again.
Who are the sources?
Who are Ian Murphy and David Koen? Where do they work? How do the papers they work for
differ from more mainstream newspapers?
What did they do?
How did Murphy and Koen report their stories? Who did they claim to be? How did their sources
and the public react to what Murphy and Koen did?
How does what they did compare to the ABC Food Lion reporters?
Go back to Chapter 13, page 340, to read about the case of ABC producers lying about their
work history to get jobs working in a Food Lion store. How did the actions of Murphy and Koen differ
from those of the ABC producers investigating Food Lion? How did their motivations for being deceptive
about their identities differ?
How do you and your friends feel about deception by reporters?
Photo Manipulation
For more on the ethics of manipulating digital images, read the linked article by John Long on
the National Press Photographers Association website:
www.nppa.org/professional_development/self-
training_resources/eadp_report/digital_manipulation.html
NOTES: This is a growing issue as digital photo editing becomes the industry standard. It is impossible for
photo editors to say that they will do no digital manipulation, because every photo is cropped and
adjusted digitally. So, the question then becomes how much is acceptable and under what
circumstances. Here are a couple of case studies you may find interesting:
• A Los Angeles Times photographer was fired for digitally combining two photos he took during
the 2003 war in Iraq: www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=28082
• Sports Illustrated digitally altered a dramatic sports photo in order to make it fit on the cover:
www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=15422
• A Toledo Blade photographer resigned after he had digitally altered a page-one photo:
www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2007/04/toledo03.html
• A pair of Reuters photographs of columns of smoke rising over Beirut were found to have been
edited to show more smoke: www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2006/08/reuters.html
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson
Lecture Builders
There is a great archive of controversial digitally (and conventionally) altered photos assembled by
Hany Farid, a computer science professor at Dartmouth. The archive is located at
• http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/
SHOULD NEWS OUTLETS SHOW PHOTOS OF TERRORISTS?
Another fascinating piece from Time magazine’s Light Box feature. Fred Ritchin, Dean of the School
at the International Center of Photography, looks at the questions of what our news media ought to do
with photos of terrorists. On the one hand, their photos are emphatically news. On the other hand, in
many cases what these terrorists want is attention for themselves – and when the news media run their
photos, they are giving the terrorists what they want. An in-depth and thoughtful analysis.
• http://time.com/4438929/terror-attack-photos/
Don Imus and Race
When CBS Radio and cable news channel MSNBC fired long-time host Don Imus for calling the
Rutgers women’s basketball team a group of “nappy–headed hos” on the air, it appeared to be an issue
of what the public would tolerate from a “shock jock” radio host. But the networks were also under
pressure from advertisers who no longer wanted to be associated with Imus’s show. Advertisers, such as
office supply store chain Staples, Bigelow Tea, and consumer products giant Procter & Gamble pulled
their ads. The networks also faced considerable pressure from civil rights activists, including Al Sharpton
and Jesse Jackson, as well as from the networks’ own employees.
3
Controversy surrounding Imus’s show was nothing new.
Back in 1993, Imus said on his show, “Isn’t the Times wonderful. It lets the cleaning lady cover
the White House.” The “cleaning lady” he was referring to was Gwen Ifill, an African-American woman
who was the New York Times White House correspondent.
He made offensive and racist jokes about former secretary of defense William Cohen having an
African-American wife, and he described Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz as a “boner-
nosed . . . beanie-wearing Jewboy.” (It should be noted that Kurtz was a frequent guest on the more
serious portion of Imus’s show.)
But there was another side to Imus and his show. Along with the segments of rude talk and
bigoted commentary, Imus was also known for extended conversations with a wide range of important
newsmakers and journalists. His guests—including Tom Brokaw, Rudy Giuliani, Senator John Kerry,
Senator John McCain, and, yes, Howard Kurtz—were allowed to talk about serious issues at length
3
Paul Farhi and Paul Ahrens, “Advertisers Pull Out of Imus Show,” Washington Post, April 11, 2007, A01; Gwen
Ifill, “Trash Talk Radio,” New York Times, April 10, 2007, A21; Timothy Noah, “The Wit and Wisdom of Don
Imus; A Guide for Washington’s Power Crowd,” April 10, 2007, www.slate.com/id/2163872; Farhi and Ahrens,
“Advertisers Pull Out of Imus Show”; Paul Farhi, “Don Imus Is Fired by CBS Radio,” Washington Post, April
13, 2007, A01.
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
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Lecture Builders
instead of just in sound bites. He also runs a camp for children with cancer and has been an advocate for
autism research.
CBS had kept the show on the air for years despite the occasional bouts of controversy because
it was profitable—making $20 million a year just for his primary station, WFAN-AM in New York. But in
the end the network calculated that the cost of carrying the show was greater than the cost of dropping
it.
In December 2007, approximately eight months after he was fired from WFAN, Imus
was back on the air, this time at New York’s WABC. And in 2009, cable news channel Fox
Business News started running Imus’s show on television again. Unlike many media figures who
get caught saying something they wish they hadn’t, Imus was fairly straightforward in talking
about his return to the airwaves. He told trade magazine Radio Ink:
I think what happened is about what should have happened. . . . You don’t get to decide, nor
should you, how the news media is going to treat a remark you make. You don’t get to decide if
they will put it in context, and you can’t whine and complain if you pick up the New York Times
and an essay rates what you said as a racist tirade. Every time I would get pissed off, I’d remind
myself that if I hadn’t said what I said, I wouldn’t have to deal with it, the women at Rutgers
would have to deal with it. I always remembered that it began with that remark.
Disability and Humor
There’s a heartwarming story that circulated on the Internet in the spring of 2012 about
President Obama giving a speech on energy policy at Prince George’s Community College in MaryLand.
Stephone–a deaf man–had front-row seating for the event. He got to shake the president’s hand after
the speech and signed to him, “I am proud of you.” To Stephon’s surprise, the president signed back at
him, “Thank you.”
4
Stephon then posted a YouTube video in which he told the story of what happened in American Sign
Language (ASL). The video then spread to several social media sites, along with a transcription for those
of us who don’t sign.
I first discovered the story through a link on Twitter that took me to the Washington, D.C.–centric
blog Distriction. The story and video were posted there under the rather clever headline “Sign of the
Times.”
Then Alex, a former student of mine, mentioned on Facebook that the story had also been
posted on the Huffington Post site under the considerably less clever headline, “Deaf Student
‘Speechless’ After Obama Responds to Him in Sign Language.”
4
H. Hoover, “Sign of the Times,” March 20, 2012, distriction.com/2012/03/sign-of-the-times/; Huffington Post,
“Deaf Student ‘Speechless’ After Obama Responds to Him in Sign Language,” March 21, 2012,
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/deaf-student-obama-sign-language_n_1369118.html; Ralph E. Hanson,
“Should Streaming Video About Gallaudet College Be Captioned?” October 18, 2006,
