Exploiting a News Story

Exploiting Traumatized Victims 

Journalists, generally speaking, have a morally and ethically challenging job. On one hand, their main goal is to gather and report news, generally by any legal means necessary. However, many issues come up when questioning people involved. For example, if a woman was recently raped, does the reporter interview her and ask questions that involve the rape, or do they leave it be and rely solely on hearsay and rumors. These are the morally challenging things that every reporter goes through. Such is the case with many different public shootings. 

Sadly, it is fairly common for at least one public shooting shooting to happen in the United States, whether it be in a school, movie theater, public park, or even a church. Many shooters will simply target a place close to their residence. Regardless, there are usually several people hurt, or even killed. This is where a journalist comes in. They get paid money to get the full story from the responders, witness(es), and the victims. However, many victims of shootings either end up traumatized, injured, or grieving over the loss of another who was caught amidst the gunfire. 

In my opinion, should the journalist question any victims of shootings? Yes. However, I personally believe that all journalists should have some sort of crash course on how to properly conduct interviews with traumatized people, if they do not already have one of those. As such, the victims will, hopefully, not be affected too negatively by the actions of a reporter snooping too much into their mind after such an event just transpired.  

A specific example of exploiting victims is when a CNN reporter attempted to interview a distraught woman during the events of Hurricane Harvey. According to ijnet.org, the woman yelled at the reporter the following: “Y’all try to interview people during their worst times. That’s not the smartest thing to do. People are really breaking down and y’all sitting here with a camera and microphones trying to ask us what the f--- is wrong with us.” However, the reporter stated to the broadcasting company that the woman agreed to go on camera, but seemed that “The exhaustion and the emotion in her voice conveyed just how dire the situation has become for some Houstanians.”

This particular example is a prime example of exploitation in the media, in which the victim is clearly not thinking straight and, yet, the reporter is still attempting to get the full story. While I agree that this should be done, in order for the rest of us to be informed, I still think this could have been approached another way. It should also be noted that some reporters simply do not care about the health and safety of the victims, and are only focused on getting the full story, at ANY cost.   

Copyright and Fair Use

Japan's Amendment for Copyrighting

For many years, there have been laws and regulations controlling copyright infringement and preventing plagiarism from becoming an issue, particularly in education systems. The only exception to the rule is if the copyrighted material is either given willingly for someone else to use, if the material is used for educational purposes, or a limited amount of the material is used. All of these circumstances is referred to as fair use.

At the beginning of 2019, Japan made an amendment to the Copyright Act of Japan, it aims to improve and expand the limits that fair use has in place, particularly within the use of technology. According to lexology.com, these are the new guidelines, as stated below:

"1 Use of copyrighted works where their use is not perceivable.

Under the amended Copyright Act, companies will be able to record (reproduce) copyrighted works on databases so that the data can be used for the purpose of developing artificial intelligence (AI). Here the use will be permitted only so long as the AI uses the data for its machine learning purposes and the copyrighted work will not be perceivable when used. Further, copyrighted works can be used for the purposes of data verification, such as document search services and plagiarism checking services.

2 Ancillary use of copyrighted work on computers.

Companies may also reproduce copyrighted works for the purpose of caching on computers or for backup purposes.

3 Insignificant use of copyrighted works in relation to computer processing.

Internet search services are intended to be covered by this exemption. It has also been left intentionally vague so that it may cover new computer processing services that have yet to come into existence. The exemption may be relied upon so long as the use does not unfairly harm the interest of the copyright holder. The amended Copyright Act also provides various other exemptions such as: allowing easier access of copyright materials to persons with disabilities; museums and libraries will have slightly more flexibility on use of certain copyright materials; and some changes to treatment of orphan works where national and local governments will have more freedom to use such works." 

Because of these new laws, many hackers, as well as anyone else attempting to use any sort of copyrighted material posted on the internet, will no longer be able to use any loopholes that have been previously found to steal, copy, or do anything else of the sort with anybody's work that has been published.

Reporter's Privilege

South Dakota's Shield Laws

Many journalist's, especially in this day and age, have come under tremendous scrutiny simply for attempting to do their jobs. However, the legislature of South Dakota is taking measures to make sure that reporters will still have their right to free press without coming under fire from everyone else. Many reporters have an ongoing issue dealing with reporter's privilege, which is a reporter's protection under constitutional or statutory law, from being compelled to testify about confidential information or sources. 

In early February, South Dakota's House of Representatives voted in favor of HB 1074, which, according to freemansd.com, 'would block courts, the Legislature and other public bodies in South Dakota from holding in contempt journalists who assert the privilege. It would also make information obtained in violation of the law inadmissible in legal proceedings. It’s a measure that should become law." It should also be noted that South Dakota is not the only state to implement an act such as this. Thirty-nine other states already passed similar acts well before South Dakota jumped on the bandwagon.

Gov. Kristi Noem has been pushing for a shield law that covers reporters for quite some time, especially with the rise of absolute hate that many reporters are receiving throughout the state. In August of 2018, Noem paid a visit to the South Dakota Newspaper Association and spoke with their representatives, pushing wholeheartedly for a shield law based, solely, for the purpose of protecting reporter's privilege. 

A media law professor, Johnathon Peters, was asked to give a reasonable explanation behind why this is such a critical issue. This is his response, which was published in the Columbia Journalism Report: "Generally, any person who is asked or ordered to testify (or produce documents) at a legal proceeding is required to comply. If the person doesn’t, she’s subject to a contempt finding, which means a judge could put the person in jail, or fine her, or both. The penalty’s chief purpose is not to punish—it’s to extract compliance. 

However, there are exceptions called privileges. The most famous is the attorney-client privilege that exempts an attorney from testifying against a client about confidential communications. Many states recognize similar privileges for medical doctors, therapists, religious advisors, and spouses. They all stem from the belief that there’s a public interest that justifies the exclusion of testimony by certain people against others.

Journalists have argued that they should have a privilege for roughly analogous reasons. They rely on sources to provide the news they publish, and those sources might not share sensitive or critical information in the absence of anonymity—out of fear that they’ll be punished for sharing it. ... There’s a public interest in encouraging the disclosure of newsworthy information.

If journalists are, or are seen as, investigative arms of the government or private interests, then the public might lose faith in their reporting and be loath to trust them with information."