The past week was definitely not one of the media's finest. On the one hand, we have the continuous propaganda battle surrounding the downed jet on the Turkish-Syrian border. On the other, we have the shocking media practices that followed the mass shooting that took place in the United States. Let us go on with the latter, as this time the situation quickly evolved from being a symptom of falling standards and ethics in the media to becoming an example of the said failures.
First off, the summary of the events from the related Daily Sabah news article:
"A heavily armed man and woman in their 20s died in a shootout with police after killing 14 people at a Christmas party in California in America's worst mass shooting in three years," authorities said.
Police identified the pair as Syed Farook, a 28-year-old U.S. citizen who worked for the local county, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, whose nationality was unknown. They said the suspects were either married or engaged. Jarrod Burguan, San Bernardino's police chief, confirmed that both were dead, and that police no longer believed a third suspect mentioned earlier was at large.
The shooters targeted a year-end party that was taking place in a social services center in San Bernardino, about an hour drive east of Los Angeles, killing 14 people and wounding 17 more. "We don't have the motive at this point," the police chief said. "We have not ruled out terrorism."
Following the initial shock, the controversy was largely around the issue of gun control, but we will look at the behavior of the media after the suspects were officially identified.
A couple of the biggest television networks in United States, such as CNN, MSNBC, CBS, BBC and FOX News, sent their crews to the apartment of the attackers. However, what followed may very well be a first in the modern history of the media. All of the television crews stormed the apartment and started to report live with their respective channels. Some went to the room of Farook and Malik's six-month-old baby. Some hunted for documents and pictures as well as identification cards.
The justification given by the media for this action was that the landlord gave them permission. However, later on, the landlord said that he did not allow them inside but that the media rushed in when he opened the door in an interview he gave to CBS. So this is either strike one or a case of cold feet by the landlord following the public outcry. Let us move on.
Although it was apparent that police had already processed the scene, the media trampled all over the remaining possessions and possibly contaminated any chain of evidence if a further examination was needed on the premises This blunder, however, cannot be placed solely on the shoulders of the media as law enforcement should have secured the scene and denied the reporters entrance.
The most important mistake wasn't from those above, however. By reporting live and without proper editorial oversight, the contents of the attackers' home were laid bare to the entire world. Just for a second consider that the apartment contained info and photographs about the attackers' families, friends or even acquaintances. They would all be under risk of being shunned or even attacked for something they did not do. However, the media conveniently forgot this possible outcome. MSNBC showed a driver's license of Farook's mother without even blurring either the information or pictures. They focused on the photographs, lacking the certainty they belonged only to the attackers themselves. Reporters speculated widely with the encouragement of their anchormen and anchorwomen.
Ethics clearly were out the window during the "media raid," and labeling this as an institutional failure wouldn't be too far-fetched. The international media criticized the citizen journalism that vigorously arose following the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Yet, this time all of the big guns were stepping on top of each other, while taking actions that could potentially achieve the same results. Jordan Hoffman, a film critic, said in his tweet that MSNBC was really nailing this "Nightcrawler," a 2014 movie about reporter overreach — cosplay; a most fitting response to the fiasco.
