Reporter's Privilege - The Value of Anonymity

Throughout history, the element of anonymity has been the deciding factor on whether or not important information is provided to the public. Works like "Democracy - an American Novel," anonymously published by Henry Adams of the revolution-era Adams political family and "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man," which spotlighted bi-racial identity in America during the turn of the 20th century were both eye-opening exclamations about the state of America at the time that sparked uproar about the identity of the author. Additionally, historic cases like the Watergate scandal that exposed corruption in the Nixon administration would not have come to light had the right to anonymity for sources through reporter's privilege been present.

In our increasingly technological society where everyone seems to document everything, everyone with a camera or internet access is a potential reporter, witness, or source, anonymous or otherwise. As the amount of information and people documenting it increases, the need for a way to protect those who have or wish to provide information without compromising their identity increases as well. Though no federal shield law exists to protect anonymous sources through reporter's privilege, the majority of states in the U.S. have protective statutes on the state level. While these state laws protect journalists and their confidential sources in most cases on the state level, they are "qualitative" statutes, which weigh reporter's privilege against other interests and factors on a case-by-case basis. A federal statute is still needed to ensure the protection of journalists, their sources, and most importantly, the free flow of accurate information to the public.

The element of anonymity is a powerful vehicle for the free flow of information and necessary to ensure trusting relationships between sources and reporters, so long as the anonymous source is providing truthful, accurate information. Individuals who may potentially receive backlash from divulging information would not do so without the protection of anonymity, which can be a massive obstacle for the justice system. This exists in many forms throughout society: in personal engagements, when sharing private or sensitive information the statement can often be finished with "but you didn't hear it from me;" we can upscale this to anonymously tipping the police about a neighbor's suspicious activity, or criminal informants (CIs) providing information to police without their relationship being revealed to criminal associates, or similarly when a corporate employee anonymously provides information about corruption or "unique book keeping" within the management of the corporation. Without anonymity, these people who have valuable, accurate information which could otherwise not be produced would simply not step forward, for fear of personal harm, termination of employment, or worse. In most of these situations, at least a basic level of protection is offered for those who provide information, particularly to law enforcement.

 Much like patient-doctor confidentiality, client-lawyer confidentiality, and clergy confidentiality, which protect doctors, lawyers, and clergymen from testifying against their patients, clients, and congregation, a federal shield law would seek to protect the rights to privacy and free speech and identity of anonymous sources, unless the anonymity of the source could be proven to be a threat to national security, or if the needed information could be legally procured through no other means than the revealing of a source's identity, as per the ruling of Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) which stands as the key precedent for all cases that deal with reporter's privilege, and ruled that to reveal a confidential source the government or prosecution must "convincingly show a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest."


Ref:  http://www.rcfp.org/digital-journalists-legal-guide/sources-and-subpoenas-reporters-privilege

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nONQi1S21Q

Plagiarism and Fabrication - Bowling Green Massacre

The Kentucky town of Bowling Green has a long and rich history, first as one of the few trading posts for "long-hunters" before post-revolution expansion past the Appalachians, then as an important trade and commercial center for Kentucky during the early 1800s, and remains to this day a beautiful city and testament to human resilience and ability to thrive. If you were to walk into town in Bowling Green today, you might happen upon Fountain Square Park, the former location of the town's first courthouse and jail; however, contrary to what Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway would have you believe, what you will not happen upon in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is any sort of "massacre."
   To justify President Trump's executive order to ban entrance to the U.S. for non-U.S. citizens from seven Muslim-majority for 90 days, Conway referenced the town of Bowling Green, Kentucky, saying that there had been a massacre, perpetrated by radicalized Iraqi refugees Waad Radan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi.  This was supposedly the reason for a similar ban on immigration from Iraq for six months in 2011.These claims have been proven to be almost entirely false. To Conway's credit, the Obama administration's State Department did slow down the processing of SIVs to Iraqi applicants after the events of Bowling Green, but again, there was no massacre, nor was there any attack on U.S. soil, or even a plot for an attack on U.S. soil. The two refugees, Alwan and Hammadi, were under FBI surveillance for months prior to the sting operation that brought them in, and both pleaded guilty to using IEDs against U.S. forces in Iraq and attempting to send money and arms to Al-Qaeda in Iraq; both also plead guilty to federal terrorism charges. Alwan was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison followed by a life term of supervised release while Hammadi was given a life sentence.

 
   Now, while these two men's presence in the U.S. did pose a legitimate threat to national security, as they were both engaged in combat operations with U.S. ground troops prior to obtaining refugee status and were actively attempting to supply Al-Qaeda with weapons and money from the U.S., Conway's statement that they had successfully conducted an attack on U.S. soil and that it simply "didn't get covered" in the media carries huge weight, no matter how baseless. Conway attempted to backpedal and say that she stumbled and meant to say "Bowling Green terrorists," but proof arose that she had referred to the "massacre" in at least one other interview, this time with Cosmopolitan, and mentioned a "Bowling Green attack" in an interview with TMZ.
   Blatantly false statements like this carry huge implications for the public, and are most certainly dangerous. Not even diving into the ethical mire of using the megaphone of a White House platform to spread false information to justify irrational executive orders, using the megaphone of a White House platform to spread false information about a terrorist attack on U.S. soil is simply incendiary. Consider an uneducated right-wing extremist. Xenophobic, extremely nationalistic, formerly terrified the Obama administration would confiscate their firearms, etc. Obviously they are not a majority, not a large part, not even a considerable part of the right-leaning population, but they exist, and it only takes one to see a news story like this, or even a quote like the one pictured above, and become radicalized and violent towards Middle Easterners in the U.S. One such instance occurred on February 20th when a 51 year old restaurant employee in Kansas yelled "get out of my country" at two Indian men before shooting and killing one and injuring the other. The man, Adam Purinton, reportedly thought the men he was attempting to kill were Iranian.
   We cannot allow false information to cloud our judgement or moral compass, neither as individuals or as a nation.



Ref: http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/politics/bowling-green-not-massacre-terrorists-trnd/

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-iraqi-terrorists-living-kentucky-sentenced-terrorist-activities

Advertising Ethics - Video Games

A New Standard

     The transition into 2017 has brought, for the video game industry, a new standard for advertising. For the nearly 100 billion dollar video game industry, consumers are particularly hard to please. While other markets usually advertise a few main points -function, quality, integrity-, the video game industry has several things to advertise: concept, graphics, gameplay, connectivity and mechanics. While -in traditional product advertising-, suppliers may experience blowback from consumers over the quality, construction, or purpose of a product; video game developers see blowback from consumers over numerous issues. Gameplay may not be as fluid and well-processed as advertised, the graphics quality may have been reduced (usually to help processing speed) since the ad was produced, or certain advertised in-game features are dumbed down, nonfunctional, or nonexistent. Several recent instances of this are games like Watch Dogs and No Man's Sky. Their "over-hyped" advertising and subsequent consumer disappointment has led to the coining of new terms for gamers: "Watch Dogs Syndrome" and "The No Man's Sky Effect."

Watch Dogs Syndrome

    The Watch Dogs reveal at E3 2012 was received with great applause, with audience members marveling at the game's crisp, hi-resolution graphics showcased through a club scene and dynamic rain, intelligent and numerous NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) and awe-inspiring game mechanics, like hacking the city's infrastructure to cause massive car crashes by changing street lights, or over-pressuring steam pipes. The reveal showed a promising launch title for the PS4, with graphics and mechanics previously thought to be unattainable on the present hardware; however, upon it's retail release consumers discovered that graphics for the game had been downgraded and in-game events like exploding gas stations and player-triggered vehicle collisions were lackluster compared to their E3 previews. Additionally, in the months prior to launch Ubisoft mentioned that all of the game's NPCs would be completely unique, each with their own name, bio, income, and occupation. However, Ubisoft had to lower their number of uniquely rendered NPCs along with several other minor graphic details for prev-gen consoles.
    Watch Dogs' over-hype and player disappointment was a milestone in game development, and an important lesson for Ubisoft (one they haven't learned from, as several other Ubisoft games advertised with high graphic content have wound up similarly dumbed down, like Tom Clancy's The Division and Far Cry 3). However, Watch Dogs is primarily an example of developers not delivering what was promised graphically. Mechanically, the game only removed or re-purposed a few minor elements. For undelivered advertised mechanics, we look to indie developer HelloGames' mammoth flop of a title, "No Man's Sky."
    No Man's Sky is a huge procedurally generated game with more than a billion unique and fully explorable worlds. Gamers can gather resources on one planet, refuel their ship, launch into the sky, break orbit, travel to another planet, enter the atmosphere, and land, all without a single loading screen. It's gameplay mechanics, much like Minecraft, called for gamers to gather resources from nature by mining and scavenging certain elements to improve your personal space ship and equipment. It showed much promise at E3, with lead developer Sean Murray showcasing the mining elements, space travel, combat, trading, and more. Aspects of the game that really caught the public eye were procedurally generated environments and animals -with millions of unique species and subspecies on each planet to be discovered-, large-scale space battles that the gamer can opt in to to defend or attack for rewards, the possibility of multiplayer -with a game as massive as this and no matchmaking element, the possibility of seeing another live player in the game is miniscule if not coordinated properly- and the complete lack of a single loading screen beyond the boot screen.
   Upon release, gamers were appalled to discover that loading screens do exist, when "warping" from one solar system to another, the procedurally generated animals seemed less realistic than what was shown at E3, and beyond what they were shown that you can do in the game -explore, trade, pirate, hunt- you really had no true direction in the game, which put many traditional gamers off right from the start. Additionally, the raging space battles we had seen had been reduced to the occasional pirate raiding you after warping into a new area. This dramatically changed how the public viewed the game, even leading to an investigation for false advertisement. Through all the player complaints as well as the investigation, HelloGames remained calm and quiet, finally releasing The Foundation Update, a massive update that added new game mechanics like resource farming, home bases, purchasable freighters, and much more.
   With video game developers being forced to put as much content into their games as quickly as possible to meet deadlines, as well as make the game function properly at release but look good at reveal, the challenges are compounding, and developers simply don't have the time to optimize entire games to run smoothly and quickly while maintaining satisfying graphic output. Only time -and stronger hardware- will get us there.

Ref: https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/the-no-mans-sky-effect-2a8720c1a1c6#.wbklcblmr

Supermarket Tabloids - Opinion

Tabloid publications are considered by most as the bottom rung of journalism, as they often use sensationalist tactics to peddle what are usually complete lies. From stories of domestic abuse, drug scandals and alien sightings to the celebrity and political scandals that dominate headlines today, tabloids (when we actually read them) greatly affect our perception of the social and political landscape of our society. But if these publications are mostly lies and sensational headlines, why do people still read them? Why are tabloids so successful?

Tabloids give us the same sense of satisfaction that we get when being told a secret, seeing a secret meeting, or discussing gossip with friends. Evolutionarily speaking, humans are wired to be receptive to gossip for multiple reasons. Evolutionary biologist Daniel Kruger states that engaging in gossip may have been a survival trait for earlier man. For personal benefit, "learning what high-status individuals do, so you might more effectively become one," and for socio-political benefit, "knowing what is going on with high-status individuals, you'd be better able to navigate the social scene." Watching individuals that you want to be like or having information on popular topics makes you better prepared for social interaction and more likable.
Ultimately, tabloids are less like news and more like drugs and Facebook. While they don't provide much factual information, they appeal to the human mind, full of juicy gossip to be shared, sold, or secretted. Like watching a train crash, you know nothing good will come of it but you cannot make yourself look away. 

Bias in Cable TV - Fox News

Bias in media has always been prevalent, but with the success of polarized news sources like CNN and FOX, polarization through bias in news outlets has become a much stronger force than it used to be. Ideological and political views of the public are being shaped and reinforced by openly biased news outlets that often admit to their pandering.

While CNN follows neo-liberal trends, the FOX network has maintained an increasingly conservative stance, as was the plan from its inception. FOX News founder and former CEO Roger Ailes once commented on having no actual journalists on the show. "F-ck 'em, It's not a press conference - it's a television show. Our television show. And the press has no business on the set." Reportedly, Ailes' reporters got their news information from the same place the rest of America did: their TV. Throw in some conservative spin and animated newscasters, and you have a thriving new network. Throughout the following years Ailes became a media commodity for presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr., using spin tactics and positively portraying them on his network.

Why do we watch so-called "news" networks that maintain political ties, with such obvious bias? The answer once came from Ailes himself: "People watch TV emotionally" - rather than logically. FOX News is a business, programmed and fine tuned to sympathize with the emotions of conservatives, then further solidify those emotions through spin and downplaying any dissenting opinions. This is the heart of our issue, news networks are businesses, just like any other. They rely on a cash flow to remain in operation, and how better to ensure a business's cash flow than to shape the minds of its own customers?

Sources: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525