In the Public Interest: Public vs private

Has anyone tired of seeing news reports being distorted into entertainments? Has anyone realized that news reports concerning with human interest had suffered because of such reason? However, interesting enough, entertainments and journalism had went hand in hand for a long time. Thus, sensationalism in journalism was created as an important ingredient in news reports to stimulate public interest. As a result, events are seen as newsworthy when they are emotionally compelling and had intruded one’s privacy.

The duty of a journalist is to inform public on the events that are happening around them. However, problems will arise when the right of society to be informed had went against the right of individuals to privacy. Moreover, to make such problems more complicated, there is actually no clear-cut distinction between what is consider right and wrong when it comes to the issue of privacy and public interest. As a result, there are still possibilities of conflicts to rise when a journalist cover a story that touches on such areas. Therefore, in my opinion, a journalist should always question himself if he had intruded on a person’s personal life when writing or reporting on a story. For example, should a journalist approach grieving parents and conduct an interview with them about their murdered son? I think it is better not to. We had understood that news should be unusual and interesting, however, it is impossible for journalists to find an educational aspect to report every single story in the world of reality. Hence, I feel that no matter how interesting a news story can be, there must still have a dividing line between the type of news that the public has the right to know, and those for the individuals to keep private. For example, if a celebrity has some negative behaviour at his or her home, the media have no rights to report on it, as there is no possible negative effect on the celebrity’s public role. Such situation can be considered as invading a person’s privacy.

I understand that there is a need for companies to maintain their readerships and businesses. However, in recent years it seems that the drive for profits has completely overshadowed the public interest in reliable and informative news. As a whole and in my opinion, there should be a limit of sensitivity where it is important for the concern of individuals to be balanced with a journalist’s responsibility to inform the society as a whole. It is definitely not easy to define or maintain such balance, but being as a journalist, one has the responsibility to try.