Conference quark::mennotes-v1

    >But I wish there was some kind of code of ethics regarding the
    >revealing of information that becomes known to the media.  
    
    	There is -- it's the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
    
    	IMO, I prefer too much media access to too little.
    
    					andrew

    What do you mean by the catch-all term "media"?; newspapers, television
    reporting, radio, commentary, interviews; or are you damning the whole
    institution?
    
    Do "the media" have ethics?  Plenty.  They argue and agonize often over
    critical issues of access, privacy, the right to know, confidentiality,
    and so on.  Sometimes, even after weighing all sides carefully, they
    err on the side of sensationalism and sloppy, mawkish reporting (the
    classic "How do you feel?" question to the grieving widow after a
    plane crash).
    
    And yet, reporters and reporting in this country (including still
    photographers) do a fine job.  The ambluance chasers eventually fall of
    their own weight or will, if "the public" -- another catch-all phrase
    -- won't support it (it being the New York Post, "A Current Affair",
    the National Enquirier; pick your own tragets).
    
    Now if we can only the "the military" to grant the press freedom-of-the-
    press on the Pursian Gulf ...
    
    Larry

    RE: .1
    
    Well, I agree that if that's the only choice, Andrew,
    either no freedom or complete freedom, I'll go with 
    complete freedom, too.  And the price for complete freedom
    is still probably worth it.  Still, it would be nice to 
    see someone exercise some restraint and get publicly 
    praised for it. (Don't worry, I'm not holding my breath.)
    
    It reminds me of the tennis circuit.  I play tennis and
    got interested in watching the amateur tournaments 30 years
    ago before there were pro tournaments.  I went to Longwood in
    Brookline for the National Amateur Grass Court championships
    many times.  Almost without exception, the Australian players
    were "gentlemen."  If there was a bad call against their
    opponent, they would simply let the next serve go by, ceding
    the point and evening it up.  (Not on match point, of course,
    but most of the other times.)  They voiced their objections, often
    without words.  They'd walk to the place of the bad call, place
    their racket on the spot where the ball hit, and simply look
    at the lines person.
    
    Many of the Americans were hot heads, yelling at linesmen,
    umpires, etc. I even saw Clark Graebner hit a linesman with
    a ball that he served right at him after a call went against
    him.   But being an American hot head in those days didn't 
    compare to the antics of brats like McEnroe.  I seem to recall
    tht he got tossed out of a tournament recently for his 
    behavior.  Was it in Australia?  Cheered me up.
    All that seems to matter now is who wins, and as long as
    McEnroe won, he could do anything he liked.
    
    When tennis went commercial, and the television cameras
    appeared, and the big time arrived, the sense of sportsmanship
    (that I knew) left the game.  So, I still play, but I don't
    watch it -- it just ticks me off.
    
    bill

>    But I wish there was some kind of code of ethics regarding the
>    revealing of information that becomes known to the media.  It seems
>    to me that we threw away all sense of ethics, maybe 20 or 30
>    years ago...
    
Correct me, if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that locker-room 
interviews were conducted 20 or 30 years ago.  Longer, actually.

If you were as concerned with the privacy of football players 20 or 30 
years ago as you are now, after hearing about this latest controversy, 
then, I applaud you.  However, if your concern only surfaces when it 
comes to women professionals being allowed in the locker rooms, then I 
think that there may be some sexism at play as to the timing and 
context of your "media" concern.

Yes, it is true that the inclusion of women professionals in
locker-room interviews adds a new twist to the privacy issue, a twist
that might make us all rethink the presence of all reporters in locker
rooms.  (But, while we are at it, let's realize that gay men have
always been present in locker-room interviews, on both sides of the
interviews, so simplistic arguments of "sexual attraction!" shouldn't
be used.)  However, I find it quite sexist that, when a woman gets
harrassed, we get all these attempts by men to switch the topic to
whether she belongs in that locker room.  (At least you had the
courtesy, Bill, to start a new topic.) 

It smacks of blaming the victim, and it's very ugly.  At a time of
harrassment, I think that, as a society, we should focus on correcting
the injustice of the harrassment.  When that is over with, then maybe
we need to take a long, hard look at locker-room interview rules.   
Maybe professional tennis has the answer that the major sports are 
looking for in this area: no locker-room interviews, and required 
interviews after players shower and change.  It's fair, and it provides 
players of both genders with increased privacy.  

But good luck getting the interviews when the Celtics play the Lakers
on the west coast, in time for the morning additions of the papers!  
Part of me likes the idea of giving the players more privacy, but I do 
know how much I like reading about Celtics west-coast games the next 
day in the paper.

Wouldn't it be great if we weren't so hung up about our bodies???


							--Gerry

    My thought would be that because the convention exists already to
    allow sportswriters in the locker room, that anyone in pro sports
    has already sacrificed their privacy; the price of fame, so to speak.
    
    To not allow women reporters in would seriously limit their ability to
    get interviews and to do their job well, and, as such, is
    discriminatory.
    
    How much privacy is left when live T.V. cameras are allowed in locker
    rooms after the game, now?
    
    If privacy is the issue, then it is an all or nothing proposition.
    
    -roger
    

>    Now if we can only the "the military" to grant the press freedom-of-the-
>    press on the Pursian Gulf ...

 It is highly unfortunate that the press is not required to have a brain.
The vast majority of media types exist only for the glory of being the first
to report something. It all comes down to money, as is indicated by ratings
and/or advertising revenues.

 We are engaged in a potential military action in the Persian Gulf. I am all for
freedom of the press, except when the dissemination of certain items leads to
an advantage for our adversaries. When the much heralded freedom of the press
leads directly to the loss of american lives, then we have a problem. While
press reports from the middle east have not yet lead to deaths, some of the
items have been dangerously explicit, leading to potentially increasing
vulnerability of our troops. Secrecy is exceedingly important in the military.
While some level of press monitoring of the military buildup is necessary for
the purposes of oversight and accountability, we must walk a thin line and
not allow the press to become too rambo-bunctious in reporting tactical
and strategic information to the Iraqis.

 The Doctah

    RE: .4, Gerry
    
    I did start a new topic on media ethics, Ger, because I knew it
    was different from the patriots/harassment topic.
    
    I agree that it sounds like harassment.  A woman standing around 
    with paper and pencil while I'm in the shower room would sound
    like harassment of me, however.  Not to the same degree, of course.
    And one woman reporter versus a bunch of them who had me surrounded
    and were taunting me it also make a big difference.
    
    So, I agree with your assessment of harassment, and I agree with
    your analogies of punching out your boss as an equally inappropriate 
    response to harassment on the job.  
    
    I agree that the fair way to do it is to ban all reporters from the
    locker room, not to let women in on a "fairness" principle.  And the
    courts probably would always rule in favor of letting in the women 
    reporters rather than *banning* the men reporters, and that ruling
    is sexist.  I doubt that the women reporters tried to get the men
    reporters banned from the locker rooms, but I'll bet they would
    not have succeeded.
    
    That is, the courts won't take away a man's already-exercised "right"
    in order to give women reporters equal access to the story.  So letting
    the women into the locker room is "fair".   But not to the players.
    Oh yes, the players are public figures, so they're fair game for the media,
    at all times.  I forgot.  And if they aren't "public" figures, they
    get paid a lot of money, so that must make them fair game...
    (May I never do anything that makes me a public figure!)
    
    I started this note because my sensibility about the media sticking
    its videocam in someone's face got jogged.  The NFL players come off
    the field after a couple of hours of trying to be as physically
    brutal as they can (within the rules of the sport) and someone sticks
    a camera in their face and starts asking questions.  I'm surprised
    more cameras don't get stomped on.  The whole idea of it feels like
    taunting to me. The reporters don't care about how the player feels,
    they care about getting a "story", and a "story" is anything that
    their media will show the public.  It's a scramble for quotable statements.
    And an even better story would be a picture of a player stomping
    a film-crew's camera.  Good stuff.  Those guys are animals, we all
    know it, and now we have the proof for you, the media consuming
    public.  All we were doing is taking a picture of this guy scratching
    himself in the locker room, a perfectly normal thing for a player to
    do after sweating for two hours in a football uniform, and look
    what he went and did.     I'm afraid my sympathies are with the
    players (NOT FOR HARASSING THE WOMAN!) but for having to keep their
    cool under a lot of pressure.
    
    Look, there probably are some reputable reporters, who have some
    personal code of what they will report and what they won't, and what
    they will do to get a story.  I certainly don't know what the code is.
    But I keep getting the feeling that there is less and less 
    exercising of any self-restraint by the media.
    
    Bill

    In Germany we'd ask "what was first, the egg or the hen?"...
    
    Because, is it really the media being undiscret, or is it rather the
    readers that demand that sort of trash?
    
    Hell, look at the most successful newspapers...they aren't the most
    informative and serious ones, exactly...In Germany, a high quality
    newspaper like "Frankfurter Allgemeine" (something like "The Times")
    sells 300,000 copies a day, and a disgusting piece of garbage like
    "Bild" (something like "The Sun", but probably much worse) sells
    2,000,000 copies a day.
    
    Look at the way people are...Jeez, how they stop their cars to get a
    better glimpse of a particularly messy car accident on the highway, how
    they stop on the street to look at the on-going discussions between two
    dirvers after a car crash. Yeah, WE ain't that way, of course, but your
    average citizen obviously is.
    
    Seems to be that tragedy-voyeurism is a solid ingredient of social
    behaviour nowadays, and looking for the reasons would probably be a
    good subject for a doctorate in psychology of the masses...a depressing
    one, too!
    
    Don't knock the media, they are only a reflection of the way society
    is, they just provide people with what they want and deserve. As long
    as it sparks more interest in folks to read about a politician's sexual
    life than reading about real political issues, you'll have that sort of
    "news" in the papers, and you'll have reporters that are paid for
    writing about it. 
    
    I'm sure the reporters would prefer to work for something that earns
    them a Pullitzer, but...money rules! 
    
    ...Paul (who loathes gossip-news and couldn't care less for what a
             gorilla with an underdeveloped IQ could tell in the 
             intellectually not very challenging atmosphere of a 
             locker room...)