Author:

Keywords:

journalists, deontological code, victims, news coverage

Abstract:

Scholars and journalism practitioners alike agree that the internet has changed the way of gathering, producing and presenting news in newsrooms all over the world. However, notwithstanding all possibilities and positive effects of this often more efficient way of news gathering (e.g., computer assisted reporting, faster acquisition of documents, introduction of user generated content in news media outlets, multiple sources within seconds, multimedia opportunities), hidden pitfalls of using the internet and especially social networking sites such as Facebook or Netlog enter journalistic practice. Legal questions and privacy matters are under scrutiny within politics, society and not in the least within the journalism profession itself. The newspaper reporting of a tragic bus crash in Switzerland (Sierre) one year ago in which 22 Belgian and Dutch primary school children and 6 adults were killed, severely shook society in these European countries. The printing of the children’s pictures on the front pages of popular newspapers (photos were plucked from Facebook and the internet without the parents’ permission) resulted in the adaptation and extension of the deontological code for Belgian journalists (March 2012) and the sentencing of three Swiss media platforms that spread the pictures. We ask ourselves in what way this adapted deontological code has actually changed the reporting on victims of accidents, disasters and crime in the journalistic praxis in Flanders? We conducted 30 in-depth interviews with Flemish journalists (7 women and 23 men; 13 work for print media, 17 are audiovisual reporters working for the public or private broadcast market) during the winter of 2012. A semi-structured interview guide was used, the interviews were recorded, fully transcribed and analyzed, using NVIVO software. Journalists were guaranteed that their input would be treated anonymously. We asked the interviewees what role social media are playing in their working lives, what rules their news room holds concerning social media in general, and what they think about the applicability of the (adapted) deontological code in the daily praxis when it comes to privacy matters and the use of pictures of victims in particular. Additionally, we asked whether they believe practices have changed after the Sierre case.