On Writing- journalism or voyeurism?

Although I am a novice fiction writer, I have been writing all my life. Well, definitely once I was in school and learned how to do it. Professionally, I have years of experience in PR and journalistic writing. I recently moved into academic writing and am gaining experience there as well. 

This background has provided me with some opinions on writing. Here you therefore get the first post of what will become a loosely connected mini-series of opinion pieces- or quite possibly rants!

I read a post by a German Anonymous blogger on Facebook yesterday. It addresses the reporting about the Germanwings plane crash in the French alps. It is in German, so I will summarize it briefly:

The blogger’s main message is that Mrs Merkel and the “lying press” in Germany are hiding facts from the German public. The main arguments are the “quick guilty verdict” of the co-pilot, who can’t defend himself any more, the evaluation of the crash by several Secret Service organizations from different nations as not being a terrorist attack, the “complete pulverization” of the plane (as it was described by a French fire fighter who worked at the scene), which the author claims could not be explained by the physical powers of a “simple” crash, and the lack of reporting on problems with poisonous fumes in cockpits.

In addition, the author questions the motives of German media and their reporting style. The main argument here is that the NY Times was the first to report about the content of the voice recording and that German media cited the Times until the details of these voice recordings were confirmed by officials the next day.

Let me assure you that I am not promoting blind followership of governments or the media. I did grow up in Germany after all, where ignorance and a lack of scrutiny had catastrophic consequences not even 100 years ago! Keeping your brain switched on when reading/watching the news is important!

But in this case, I would like to defend the reputable media outlets in Germany. I currently live in Canada and thus followed the reporting on the plane crash over here and on German news websites.

The German media have held back and shown respect for the victims and those who lost someone. They have not speculated too much and kept their distance to those who died as well as those who lost family members or friends.

The international reputable media were less respectful! The NY Times published pictures, full names of the victims and quotes of relatives soon after the crash. Similar crashes and expert speculation filled pages, CNN held a Q&A sessions on Twitter where people could ask “things they did not understand about the crash”, hashtag #GermanwingsQs and all. These outlets were the first to use the co-pilot's full name and post some grainy pictures.

Just to make this clear: I am talking about reputable media that want to be taken seriously and pride themselves on their journalistic ethics- this does not include the paper with the 4 big letters or the like. I am also not talking about bloggers or disgusting tweets, even though their baiting brought on this post. And I understand that the public has an interest in knowing what happened- I frequently fly, I want to know if it is still safe!

Still, I find this journalistic sensationalism abominable. There is a word for this voyeuristic behavior in German, it translates to “shaking widows”. I commend the (majority of the) German media for holding back and not engaging in it- so far.

But unwarranted criticism and stupid accusations like the one by Anonymous, I fear, are slowly forcing the reputable outlets to change their behavior. If their act of humanity and tact causes wild and very vocal accusations, the easiest reply would be to engage in a reporting style that satisfies this underlying lust and voraciousness for ever more intimate details. There already are tweets by German media, explaining why some outlets decide to report in a respectful manner!

And yet, the German media is relenting slowly. A first step of this move towards sensationalism can be seen in the reporting about the co-pilot right now. Yes, he did a shocking, horrible thing. But we know not much about his motives or reasons. It looks like he was sick. What’s more: he was a human and he had a family and friends that lost him and are in mourning now, just like the families and friends of the other victims. What did the co-pilot's relatives do to deserve that we don’t pay them the same respect as the other mourners by digging through his personal life, especially if we should indeed not know all the facts- as Anonymous claims?

A cynical side note: of course, this greed for personal information by the public, the tweets and the bloggers only extends to others. After all, Anonymous fiercely fights for the protection of personal data!

I sincerely I hope the German media are bold enough to stay strong, especially after I read this other post by a German journalist about her experience with sensationalized reporting. She is not hiding behind anonymity while she talks about an experience she and her family had to endure 30 years ago. When her best friend and his family drowned, two “journalists” tricked her and her family into providing pictures of the victims. She vividly describes the hurt caused by this highly unethical behavior.

I wholeheartedly second her plea to journalists and editors: consider how you would want to be treated if the victims were in your family or were your friends. The name or picture of a victim is not newsworthy. Do your research, question the validity of the information provided, but keep your reporting and your research methods respectful and humane!