Fareed Zakaria, a CNN reporter and frequent print media opinion writer was under fire earlier this year for plagiarism. An article in the Boston Review asks a larger question about Zakaria and other media stars: when they take a stance, is it based on journalistic inquiry or is it "bought and paid for" by the industries that they cover? (see link here)
From the article:
There is another issue of journalistic ethics that should concern Zakaria’s critics: “buckraking”—accepting large fees for speaking engagements from industry interests he covers. Zakaria is one of many celebrity speakers represented by the Royce Carlton broker agency. His booking fee is proprietary information that Carlton Sedgeley, the agency’s president, refused to disclose to me. However, one person who tried to book Zakaria in 2008 for a speaking engagement was quoted a price of $75,000 for a one-hour talk, according to journalist Ken Silverstein. Such lucrative compensation has led some critics to wonder whether journalists should be permitted to accept speaking engagements from industry interests they cover.
According to the piece, Zakaria is a proponent of fracking (shale oil recovery). From the article:
To be fair to Zakaria and to columnists and television hosts everywhere, it is very difficult to dig deeply into an issue in a short column or television segment. The more important question is whether Zakaria’s conclusions are based on careful and independent consideration of the issues. The public’s confidence in his endorsement of shale gas would be shaken much more by the revelation that he has accepted significant speaking fees from people and organizations with stakes in shale gas.
So...who do we trust for unbiased assessments of policy and risk? If we wanted to make our own assessments, where do we start? What role do ethics play here?
This is a tough question to answer since there is little investigative reporting currently going on. Most reporting is bias one way or another, some to a higher degree than others. I think at this point it is up to citizens themselves to uncover information and make their own conclustions, however few people have enough time and resources to do this therefore the public is not well informed.
ReplyDeleteI think that for Zakaria to accept large sums of money in order to swing his article and readers in a particular direction isn't very ethical, however he is putting his own career at risk by doing so. To me this is similar to athletes not being allowed to wear Gatorade tattoos during the olympics. It is hard to restrict the public from being advertised to.