Ethics and News Values.

In this article I will be talking about a serious and sensational story that I have been assigned to do. I will talk about what certain things that are included in news articles. In October 4 2013 a 4 year old blonde Romanian girl was found living in a gypsy site with a couple. The 4 year old girl had blonde hair and bright green eyes which were different from the couple that she was living with. The couple were a male and female which were dark skinned and both had black/brown dark hair and brown eyes. This caused major controversy and local authorities to believe that the child had been kidnapped from her real parents. Over a short period of time this story has gotten really popular throughout Europe in hope that people would know who her real parents are. This then made the story a priority and became breaking news all over Europe including BBC, ITV, Sky, and Channel 4 and so on. The news reached all of the newspaper companies throughout Europe also, making it headlines for a long period of time. This story caused gypsy camps to be viewed as dangerous for other people but also caused local police to investigate the camp in search of other children that might be kidnapped of some sort. The immediacy of the story was very important due to the fact that the local police wanted to know who the parents of the 4 year old girl are and return her to them as quickly as possible. Due to the importance and immediacy of the story other famous missing children cases was raised and gave their families a sense of hope to find their missing children. An example of this will be Madeline McCann’s parents have been interviewed to show what they think of this story and what they feel about it. Other parents of missing children were also interviewed with hope of finding their children within the gypsy camp. This caused more publicity amongst people within Europe. The Madeline McCann story was the main follow up story due to the fact that a suspicion of kidnap of a 4 year old girl was mentioned. People then assumed that Madeline McCann might be in the gypsy camp therefore giving her parents hope of finding her within the area. The story was also on TV and radio all over Europe, with this being on TV and radio this will obviously include audio clips from news reporters investigating at the scene. Newspaper, TV and radio all had quotes from insiders who knew what was going on with the situation. These are all good examples of availability of audio. A lot of quotes were gathered throughout the news story such as “they told us that they didn’t give her any money, and that they met by accident”. This was required from an inside source within the gypsy camp. The story is a human interest due to the fact that many people are also affected by this problem. This story gave hope for the parents that have been inflicted by this problem. Other people are generally interested in story similar to this due to the fact that it is un human to do such a thing, this will trigger a lot of peoples emotions.

Celebrities are known to be in a way a ‘public’s property’ due to the fact that they reveal themselves completely to the public. The phone hacking scandal that occurred, news of the world’s was cantered and targeted, mainly involved the celebrities, and also the public. The phone hacking scandal has drawn claims that up to 3,000 celebrities, politicians and sports stars had their communications monitored. This topic of news involved phone hacking towards celebrities and the public therefore made the story a priority. The importance of the news became so high that it appeared on nearly every news tabloid all over Europe. It was also on TV, radio and other media sources relating the news. The duration of the news did not easily go away either. The more the press looked into the problem the more problems they eventually found out. The immediacy of the

story was so important that the police got involved with the whole situation. Celebrities were also suing certain news companies that are involved with the phone hacking scandal. As the story expanded more and more celebrities eventually found out that they are victims of the phone hacking scandal. Like I mentioned before, it wasn’t just celebrities involved. Politicians and sports stars were involved as well. Some stars have been vocal on the issue, especially Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan, who both claim to have had their mobiles tampered with. Actress Sienna Miller won £100,000 in damages from the News of the World in May, after the paper admitted hacking her phone. The phone hacking scandal involved a lot of important people such as celebrities, politicians and sports stars. From the public’s point of view, we would understand that they too would get scared about getting their phones hacked. This led to more follow up stories such as if newspapers companies can hack celebrities they can also hack the public, this would spark a lot of controversy. When Hugh Grant was interviewed this is what he had to say. ‘There has been a section of our press that has become allowed to become toxic over the last 20 or 30 years and its main tactic is by bullying and intimidation and blackmail’. This is a good example of availability of audio. From what we can see from the feedback of what the victims had to say, we can see Hugh Grant is very upset with the situation and is showing why he is upset. Different radio stations will have newsroom policy because of their target audience. Radio stations such as Key 103 and Capital will have a higher priority because of their target audience which are young teenagers and young adults, therefore the phone hacking story will interest them more. Other radio stations will still broadcast it because of its priority but radio stations aimed at the younger audience will appeal to it more. The phone hacking incident will be a human interest because it applies to us. In this day and age, nearly everyone will have a mobile phone on them which we use every day. To hear from a publics point of view that there are news companies hacking the phones of celebrities, politicians, sports stars and the public, will generally scare them. Therefore, this will scare them and would want to learn more about the story.

Overall in terms of celebrities dealing with the public and of course their privacy, in my opinion even though they are celebrities and they deal with the public nearly all the time, they are still entitled to have their privacy. Just like any other human being, we have the right to privacy.