Ethicists are raising questions about a BBC decision to edit together separate parts of President Obama's inauguration address.
What does this choice do to the BBC's credibility? How would the audience know about this editing? Does it matter?
Friday, January 30, 2009
BBC edits Obama video
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
After reading the article, I do think that both sides of the story have a point. However, when reading Tompkin's ethical guidelines, I found myself agreeing with him on almost every point. While I can understand that BBC was trying to quickly deliver the main points of the science aspect of Obama's speech, they attempted to do it shadily. It showed a lack of credibility in the station because they used audio rather than video to cover it up. Tompkin is right in saying that one cannot alter a speech by the head of state. It makes sense that is has an impact on the economy and that it is a historic speech, especially with a black president and where our economy sits at the present time.
From what I understand, the main goal for a news piece is to inform viewers/readers as thoroughly and accurately as possible. Splicing together different pieces of a speech without letting the audience know seems quite deceptive to me. When phrases are taken out of context and reassembled without acknowledgment, it robs readers of the opportunity to evaluate the meaning accurately. I certainly understand the need for brevity, but that is no excuse to mislead viewers, especially in a story of such importance. Not only do I feel it's unethical, but it's also rather foolish for BBC to do this since they risk losing so much credibility. This is a huge story, and expect many people will call them out. I feel it's always better to err on the side of over-informing your audience than to make assumptions.
Post a Comment