Jeff Jarvis of Buzzville asks whether it’s right for journalists to continue interviewing actor Charlie Sheen, calling him a mentally ill man who doesn’t need the attention:
What Sheen does may be news. What his network didn’t do is also news — when he abused women, they kept him on the air to keep the ratings he gets. What his network did do is news — they yanked him only after he issued a manic rant against his producer.
But is what Sheen says in his haze of insanity or drugs newsworthy? I don’t think so. I think it’s exploitation. They want him to act nutty. Ratings, man, ratings.
Some questions worthy of class discussion:
- Think about this from the “Who wins, who loses?” question posed in Doing Ethics in Media’s “W’s and H” questions: What list of loyalties would you create in this case?
- What obligation, if any, does a news organization have to “protect” a person from himself or herself? Do you see that as a “loyalty?”
- If there is such an obligation, is there a difference between public and private figures? And what about celebrities vs. political figures?
- Should news organizations band together to keep such people out of the public eye, or does that constitute a troubling First Amendment question? (Think about President Franklin Roosevelt, whose inability to walk was generally well-hidden from public view thanks to help from journalists.)
- The Jarvis piece mentions how CBS has kept Sheen on the air, despite his colorfully troubled past of abusing women and substances. He’s just the latest case of entertainment companies (ranging from movie companies, music companies, and sports franchises) that continued to employ people clearly swept up in drug addictions and other anti-social activities. What obligations do entertainment companies have to society to keep such people out of the public eye?
- NBA great Charles Barkley once said: “I’m not paid to be a role model. I’m paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court.” What obligation, if any, do people in the public eye have to be role models? How can parents control such things, given the difficulties in keeping mass media away from children and teens?