It’s the ethics, stupid

I once used this heading in an opinion piece about the economic meltdown. Deep down, I had written, it was a crisis of ethics that brought about the credit crunch, the bankruptcy of so many financial institutions, the loss of so many places of work, the reduction to poverty of thousands and… the list of horrible effects goes on.

Some thought ethical boundaries are a nuisance to be publicly professed but circumvented whenever possible. Easy profits were justified by easy morals.

The crisis in British journalism – time will tell whether the scandal impacts only Rupert Murdoch’s empire – could be tracked down to a crisis of ethics which emanates from the capitalist logic of commercial media structures that dominate media organisations. The capitalist media logic replaces normative journalism by market-driven journalism.

The reader or viewer is looked upon as a consumer, not a citizen. News is considered as just a commodity, since the raison d’etre of market-driven journalism is not the providing of information but the maximisation of profit.

I was listening to an interview on the BBC with a former employee of Murdoch’s. “You meet him once a year,” he said. “You do not discuss editorial matters, you discuss circulation and profits.”

The measuring rod of what is right and wrong in such organisations is popularity and profits. ‘If it sells more copies, it is good’ is the basic ‘ethical’ principle.

Quite naturally, many try to sublimate this insatiable drive for popularity and profits by trying to mask it as a deep-felt love for discovering and communicating the truth. Others are honest about it.

Chris Moncrief, a retired Press Association lobby correspondent, had said: “We are in the business to write stories to sell newspapers.

I think we are part of the entertainment industry at the down-market end. We do it for money. And if that serves the public at the end of the day – well, that’s a bonus.”

Carl Bernstein, the journalist of Watergate fame, had said the move from real journalism towards the creation of a sleazoid infotainment is creating an idiot culture.

The invasion of the public sphere by private sphere material gives media consumers much more information about the private lives of public and private people but much less about policies that really matter. The British tabloids excelled in supplying this sort of trash.

As junk food drives out healthy food and creates the impression that only junk food exists, so junk news drives out quality news and creates the impression that junk journalism is the only journalism around. The media consumer is deceived. The only winners from market-driven journalism are the commercial interests that control the media organisations.

The British public allowed this to happen and was party to it while it was happening to politicians, royalty and celebrities. They were happy to see blood drawn from politicians and misbehaving celebrities.

But now it transpired that the net of unethical and illegal behaviour was wider. The phone of a murdered girl was hacked in a way that raised her family’s hopes that she was alive. The families of terrorism victims, dead soldiers and two other murdered girls are also said to have been targeted.

The British public is now saying enough is enough. However, the British public should come face to face with the stark truth that it was feeding the monster.

This case proves once more that following ethical principles is not a limitation of freedom but a guarantee of quality. The onus of ethical behaviour weighs on the shoulders of owners, journalists and audience.

The people do not only get the politicians they deserve; they also get the media they deserve.

joseph.borg@um.edu.mt