1. Ethics and News Values
I am going to analyse two stories and discuss the ethics involved, these two news stories are
about a missing mystery 4 year old girl and the celebrity privacy article. The missing mystery 4
year old girl is a serious and sensational story it’s about a missing 4 year old girl who was found
with a Roma coupleafter allegedly being snatched by her biological parents. The girl was found
near Farsala in central Greece during a crackdown on illegal activities by Roma Gypsies, a DNA
test was carried out which proven she wasn’t related to the couple. The girl is now being cared for
by the charity A Child’s smile, which is seeking the help of European and global groups for lost or
abused children to track her parents. Greek reporters said ‘The police are revisiting kidnap cases
dating back to 2009 to help discover the girl’s natural parents.’ The story priority of this story is
very high because its hard news, it would be at the front of the newspaper. Social media have a
variety of different ways to break stories for example this news would have been in the paper the
day after the newspaper found out. The public would have seen this news and most likely share it
on social networking sites. Some follow-up angles of this story that could be asked is have they
done this before and is there is any more children there? This specific story doesn’t have
availability to audiobecause it’s print media, but if it was to be broadcasted it could be done on
both radio and TV. Radio reporters would include quotes to make the news more interesting and to
help inform the audience on what’s happened. TV reporters could go live and interview people
involved or even the audience. They could interview people on the streets and get their opinion on
this piece of news and use quotes out of the interview.The human interest for this news story
would be the audience wanting the 4 year old girl to find her parents. Their interest could also be
what’s actually going to happen the Roma couple in court. Some other human interests would be
what’s going to happen to the Roma couple for snatching the 4 year old girl, what actually
happened while she was there and how did she end up getting there. Even though the public
would find this news interesting and may be concerned for the 4 year old girl they’re usually more
interested in ‘trashy’ celebrity news. Even though this story is hard news celebrity news is usually
high up to the public. Radio shows, TV and newspapers know what mostly interests the public so
celebrity news is a top of their agenda.
The celebrity article is both invasion of privacy and the public’s interest. For years, the tabloid
press have made its reputation exclusive involving celebrity’s private lives. A variety of different
celebrity’s frequently take out injunctions against newspapers stopping them from revealing
possible indiscretions. The newspapers have been hacking into the celebrity’s phones to find out
information and secrets which the public would find interesting. Some celebrities have won cases
with the phone hacking case for example Actress Sienna Miller won £100,000 in damages from the
news of the world in May, after the paper admitted to hacking her phone. The story priority for this
news is quite high in the public because if the newspapers are hacking the celebrities phones are
they hacking into theirs as well. This breaks the ‘Human Rights Act 1998’ because they’re invading
their privacy by going through their phones. This story has been in newspapers, on Radio, TV and
Social networking sites. Some follow up angles for this piece of news would be what else are they
rooting through, if they’re rooting through celebrities phones what about their social networking
sites, emails and etc… Also what about the public even though these to entertain the public aren’t
they concerned that the newspapers could be going through their phones, social networking sites
or emails? This piece of news has availability to audio and is also print media, online there are
some clips off the BBC where they’re interviewing other about the phone hacking scandal. As well
as talking about the celebrities they also mention the case where ‘Missing Milly Dowler’s voicemail
was hacked by the News of world.’ When it comes to celebrities a lot of magazines, newspapers,
TV Presenters and Radio Presenters share certain news which isn’t entirely true. News room policy
is meant to be the truth but they sometimes care more about the ratings than the truth. The
humans interest in this would be the same as the follow-up questions, they would be concerned
about their phones getting hacked. Celebrity news is pretty high with the public’s interest agenda
so this piece of news would interest the public.