1. Oliver Toone
Ethics and News Values
In this assignment I am going to be discussing the ethics and news values about two stories
that are currently in the media. The two stories are the phone hacking and a little girl that
was abducted and living with another family.
The phone hacking is a celebrity privacy story and it involves whether or not celebrities
should have more privacy even though it has been alleged that some celebrities get their
agents to inform the paparazzi telling were they are going to be. They do this because they
make a living through appearances so they earn money. But then complain about not having
enough privacy. In the phone hacking scam over 3000 celebrities had their phone hacked by
The News of the World.
Although the phone hacking story is a celeb story this is considered to be in
thepublicinterestbecause of the link to the Millie Dowler story, but it won’t getnews
priority over the other story where a little girl was abducted and was found living with
another family In Greece. Current affairs are normally top of the news and are told first and
in this case that is what the story about the little girl is. This is considered as newsroom
policy. The fact the girl had blond hair and blue eyes was misleading and made everyone
think she could be Madeline, but also because nobody knew where she had come from
meant that it was a global news story. Whereas the celeb story was still newsworthy but it
was an on-going court case and didn’t have the urgency that the Greece story had.
Both stories are considered to be human interest stories, the phone hacking story gives the
impression that this could happen to you, whereas the story of the four year old girl was
linked to the Madeline McCann story and had everyone thinking she could be Madeline
because she had blond hair but there was also immediacy as the British public and people
around the world wanted to know who she was.
The speed in which stories are reportedhas rapidly increased over the past couple of years
due to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. So there is a sense of
immediacywithin the news room as every news channel wants to be the one that breaks the
news. With the emergence of social media news outlets such as print media can now break
the news as quick as TV and radio.
After every news outlet reported the story of the four year old girl who was found in Greece, to
continue with the story as it was news worthy, they all had different follow up angles. For example
The Daily Mail followed the angle about the lifestyle of Gypsies in Greece in a negative light whereas
The Guardian followed the angle of how common unofficial adoption is.