Final Assignment Case studies By Janis Brinkmann

1. Session 14 Final AssignmentCase studies By Janis Brinkmann Photo: imago/ecomedia/robert fishman

2. Final Assingment A group of students creates case studies on media ethics issues, problems and dilemmas referring to the context of their national media systems – as they were presented in session no. 2. The case studies should concentrate on recent cases and should follow a structure: What happened? Reaction in your country? Consequences/solutions (with the help of media accountability instruments) Examples Session 14 – Final Assignment

3. Case study # 1 The Love Parade Coverage (Germany) Source: Bildblog Session 14 – Final Assignment

4. What happened? On July 24th, 2010, German journalism was put to the test. When 21 people died in a mass panic at the Love Parade techno music festival in the city of Duisburg, party reporters suddenly had to turn into correspondents covering a catastrophe. Not every journalist was able to cope with this challenge. Many instances of irresponsible reporting triggered a nationwide debate about media ethics that was unique in many aspects. Source: Radio Hamburg Session 14 – Final Assignment

5. Reaction? The most striking aspect, in the context of web-based accountability processes, is that new and established, online and offline instruments of media observation came to interact in a way that had rarely been seen before in the German media landscape. On the media pages in the daily press, professional journalists were discussing the incident, while on the Social Web media users added their points of view – many of them were eyewitnesses of the tragedy. On Facebook, an instruction about the complaints procedures of the German Press Council was circulated. Source: ddp Session 14 – Final Assignment

6. Consequences? In the weeks after the event the German Press Council, for the first time in its history, received more than 240 complaints on one single case - the Bild newspaper’s journalistic treatment of the victims of the mass panic, which eventually resulted in a public reprimand. The case demonstrates that instruments of media observation may prove most effective when they reach a necessary degree of public awareness, which is most probable if they are applied in parallel, integrating both journalistic professionals and media users, and amplifying each other in a network of media accountability. Source: Presserat Session 14 – Final Assignment

7. Case study # 2 Jan Moir and the Daily Mail (United Kingdom) Session 14 – Final Assignment Source: Daily Mail

8. What happened? Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir wrote an article about the death of singer Stephen Gately, which was published in November 2009 - the day before his funeral. She claimed the singer's death was 'not a natural one' despite the fact he died of pulmonary odema. Moir wrote: The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath. Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again. Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered. And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy. Many people believed that Moir was trying to suggest Gately’s homosexuality was somehow responsible for his death. Session 14 – Final Assignment

9. Reaction? The column was widely discussed on blogs, Facebook and Twitter, where Stephen Fry sent his million-plus followers a link to a post on the media watch blog Enemies of Reason, which received 80,000 visitors that day. A link to the complaints form was distributed around Twitter. In total, 25,000 people complained to the Press Complaints Commission - the most complaints about a single British newspaper article ever. This demonstrated the power and speed of the ‘blogosphere’ in challenging the media and eliciting responses. Moir and the Mail dismissed the complaints as a part of a 'mischievous online campaign'. However, the Mail changed the headline (from ‘Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death’ to ‘A strange, lonely and troubling death…’) and removed all adverts from the online version of the article when people started contacting the paper's advertisers. Marks and Spencer were reported to have requested their ads be removed from the page. The only concession made by the Mail was that the column probably shouldn’t have been published the day before the funeral. Source: Enemies of Reason Session 14 – Final Assignment

10. Consequences The PCC rejected all the complaints against Moir's column, including one from Gately's civil partner. In a lengthy judgment the PCC said upholding the complaints would mark a 'slide towards censorship' as they emphasised matters of taste and decency were outside their remit. Although a post-mortem had ruled Gately had died from natural causes, the PCC ruled that Moir's claim the death was 'not natural' could 'not be established as accurate or otherwise'. The PCC's decision led to another outpouring of criticism online. Source: ppc Session 14 – Final Assignment

11. Problems of Media Accountability: Session 14 – Final Assignment

12. Final Assignment Create case studies on media ethics issues, problems and dilemmas referring to the context of your own national media system and discuss these cases in group. Session 14 – Final Assignment