Gabrielle Giffords, the Media and Decency

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Representative Gabrielle Giffords' family and staff have finally released the first photographs of her since she blessedly survived a gunshot wound to the head in January of this year. For space considerations, I am putting the photos behind a cut, but I urge you to look -- if you do not smile upon seeing them there is something wrong with you:









The photographs were preceded by her staff offering a candid assessment of the Congresswoman's remarkable progress for her near fatal injury and the struggles she still faces less than 7 months after being wounded by a bullet through her brain. There is no indication about when she is expected to return to Congress if ever, but everyone surrounding her seems mostly pleased beyond all reckoning that she has survived and recovered to this point so far.

But that's not what I am interested in discussing. What I am interested in is a matter of some astonishment to me: namely, the media and decency.

It is no secret that American's hold our national media in disdain (even while we continue to consume vast amounts of it always blaming the "other" people's media consumption habits for the knee deep sludge in our popular media lanscape). A 2009 survey by the Pew Center showed public opinion of the media at a two decade low. Ten years after her death in a car crash fueled by an effort to avoid relentless paparazzi, the editors of Britains three largest tabloids admitted that they felt responsibility for the atmosphere that led to Princess Diana's death. Despite those briefly sobering assessments, there is no real lack of American and international media pursuing sensational stories at the expense of privacy and personal tragedy.



The photographs released over the weekend are the absolute FIRST to circulate of the Congresswoman since her wounding. Some of this has to be chaulked up to the very deliberate care of her family, staff and the hospitals she has resided in to protect her privacy. The media has been kept at a very safe distance, and even her appearance at the launch of the space shuttle Discovery was carefully coordinated to prevent the media from filming or photographing her.

But at the same time, it appears that a normally voracious media appetite for the sensational has been kept at bay. Apparently, there were rumors in April of a 200,000 dollar bounty for photographs of her but nothing surfaced in the intervening months. Security can only account for so much of that -- we live in a day of cell phone cameras and video recorders and the Congresswoman has been cared for by a large number of people in the past seven months. The fact that these photos are the FIRST to be seen of her can only mean one of two things: 1) In all her time in hospitals and full time rehabilitation not ONE person has managed to sneak a picture of her and/or 2) someone did and media outlets told that person to go get stuffed.

And now the media, by taking their cues from her family and staff have helped to undercut the potential papparazi stampede at her impending release from full time care by cooperating with the careful release of these photographs.

Simply put: this is being done right. It satisfies the public's right to know the condition of one of our public figures while respecting boundaries dictated not only by those close to the congresswoman but also by simple decency.

In all honesty, those are boundaries I would like to see respected far more often. Some years back, the media got a hold of hours of emergency calls to 911 operators from the attacks of September 11, 2001. I watched the news in horror as they played a call from a young woman trapped inside the towers, crying to the operator that she was afraid to die -- and I turned off the news and refused to watch, read or listen to any story while it played through the cycle. I know that the material had been made public, but I could think of no reason that was compelling to make the victims' final moments public to the entire world except for a lack of decency.

How do you think the news media makes decisions like these and what cultural and/or moral restrictions (not legal restrictions) would you like to see on how the media balances a purported "right to know" with a sense of decency and respect?

Comments

I hate to be a cynic, but...

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

How do you think the news media makes decisions like these

Party/ideological affiliation.

what cultural and/or moral restrictions (not legal restrictions) would you like to see on how the media balances a purported "right to know" with a sense of decency and respect?

I go back to the myth of the impartial media. Let the muckrakers be the muckrakers, and encourage them to stand up and say who they are and what they stand for. Then we can make the decision as to whether it's worth it on a consumption level.

Re: I hate to be a cynic, but...

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Party/ideological affiliation.


Are you suggesting a Republican Congresswoman would have had leaked photos by now?

Then we can make the decision as to whether it's worth it on a consumption level.

Seems very likely we've made that decision as a society and it has not been for the high road. I'm thinking journalism as a profession could be more culturally adverse to wallowing in the basest impulses, however.

Re: I hate to be a cynic, but...

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Are you suggesting a Republican Congresswoman would have had leaked photos by now?

Without a doubt in my mind. After all, s/he deserved it with her positions or blocked some sort of victim shield law or whatever other hairbrained justification they can come up with.

Gabby Giffords and the Democrats benefit from a well-presented road to recovery. Thus, the media respects the wishes of the family and the Party.

Seems very likely we've made that decision as a society and it has not been for the high road.

As an American society, Fox News and CNN and MSNBC and Newsweek and The New York Times and The New York Post etc are all "objective" media outlets. Those of us who follow this stuff closely know full well that it's not the case, but hey.

I'm thinking journalism as a profession could be more culturally adverse to wallowing in the basest impulses, however.

I'm thinking most journalists could stand to take a basic ethics course.

Re: I hate to be a cynic, but...

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

THE RIGHT THE RIGHT

THE LEFT THE LEFT

I CANT CONTEXTUALIZE A SITUATION SO I MUST POLARIZE IT

Re: I hate to be a cynic, but...

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Everything becomes clear when you can see it as a left and right thing.

Re: I hate to be a cynic, but...

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Party/ideological affiliation.

If that is true, why didn't Fox News do it?

Re: I hate to be a cynic, but...

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Fox is not as conservative as many think, news-wise. I'm sure many of the commentators tried to get info, though.

Re: I hate to be a cynic, but...

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Um, not that I necessarily agree that the lack of photo's of her recovery was ideologically motivated it is very easy to explain why they wouldn't.

As others have noted displaying graphically the results of gun violence would tend to make people more favorable to gun control legislation and weaken the position of the NRA, plus any attempt to publish such photo's by a "right wing" news organization would draw considerable backlash from some religious conservatives and could very likely generate sympathy for Giffords and indirectly the Democrat cause so there is no benefit whatsoever for Fox or anyone on that side of the ideological isle to publish such a photo.

The with the more liberal news agencies, there are very good ideological reasons to publish the photo's for all of the reasons that Fox would not want to, however doing so would mean violating the wishes of the Gifford's family and turn them into the bad guy alienating their viewer base. If on the other hand the wounded politician were a Republican, the more conservative the better, then they would not have to alienate their base by showing the picture because the base would already dislike said Politician and the only risk would be if they framed the stories incorrectly generating sympathy rather than a feeling that he got his comeuppance.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I worry about you sometimes...

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Eh, he's a professor. They cluck about those things a lot.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I don't see why anyone would necessarily smile, unless they know her personally.

I'm happy for her, but my face isn't going to crack because of it.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I would like to think that this shows a new standard in media, one where they hold themselves to a higher set of ethics, but I think in this case it was simply self-preservation. I think they were well aware that the public would find any leaked photos of Congresswoman Giffords extremely distasteful. Especially if they were not extremely positive and uplifting ones as these are.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

the public would find any leaked photos of Congresswoman Giffords extremely distasteful.

Recovery from gun violence is distasteful. I think people don't realize that because we are sheltered from it.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

I am hard pressed to blame the death of someone riding with a drunk driver on the media. Giffords did not get the same level of media attention because she was not a vapid middle-aged Snooki living on the dole. Women of substance are simply not as interesting as aging sex pots.



...crap - computer problems this morning.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Honestly I think you are giving the media way too much credit here.

The reasons why there have been no pictures leaked of her is because frankly I don't think there has been any market for them. Basically there is no sizzle to this story. It's not a juicy sex scandal, there is no love triangle, no battle of good vs evil to portray. It is just a horrifying display of one isolated man's madness and a hopefully (and so far successfully) happy ending.

If on the other hand Loughner had turned out to be a hard core right wing reactionary who appeared to have drawn inspiration from some combination of Palin, Beck, or Limbaugh then I think it would be an entirely different story and pictures of her would have made the news within a week of her shooting.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I think a pic of her in hospital with her head shaved and tubes coming out of her nose would have sold.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

this is being done right.

It's to the NRA's benefit that the less pretty images of her struggle and recovery were hidden from the public.

We are shielded from the realities of gun injuries.

I know a ER nurse at highland hospital in oakland who must tell victims that recovery will be "years, not months, if ever", and he says almost everyone is shocked and has an unrealistic view of the scope of consequences of gun injuries.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

On a personal note, I am most pleased to see her smile.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Perhaps --

-- but isn't part of that shielding the simple fact that people's most intense struggles are not necessarily something the rest of us are entitled to intrude upon? I know that's why I was mortally offended by the release of the WTC 911 tapes -- it isn't that I want to be "shielded" by tragedy. It is that I am not entitled to hear the terrified last words of a victim of the attacks -- their struggle isn't mine to share.

Neither is Congresswoman Giffords'.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

She defeated death and all adversity. And she has the strength to smile. All respect to her.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people confuse the "right to know" with the "right to be entertained" or the "right to sniff through other people's dirty laundry".
This particular individual is undergoing medical treatment. It is a personal medical issue. No one has the right to know anything about it except the patient, the doctor and maybe a designated person who makes decisions if the patient is incapacitated. Okay, so a few other medical staff might need information to assist in caring for her, and the claims department of her insurance company probably needs some paperwork to process her claim. That's it.