Too Much Transparency?

Jackson Phipps
jp888711@ohio.edu

In an age where the public is quickly losing trust in the media, transparency has become a buzzword that provides an answer to regaining the lost faith and some companies are taking the trend more seriously than others.  Transparency refers to the practice of revealing variables that may affect the reporting of a story as well as any other details that could mislead the reader.  These details include, but are not limited to, political ties, family connections, and other conflicts of interest.  However, the question may be raised discussing whether or not full transparency is actually beneficial to all the parties involved. 

Though the public wants to be as informed as possible, there are situations where withholding information may be advisable in order to maintain security as well as protect confidential sources. Not everyone is finding the transparency trend to be beneficial. For example, identities of sexual assault victims are often kept private to protect the victims.  Furthermore, should a writer choose to expose certain sources of information, those sources may be more reluctant to provide access to information the next time it is needed.  Additionally, military reporters must be very careful in their reporting so as not to expose the locations of important, secret military missions.  All of this is not to say that transparency does not have value, but if employed in the wrong way the consequences of too much transparency can override any potential benefits of being open about everything and everyone involved in the story.

                      Study from the University of Maryland

The issue of finding the appropriate amount of transparency is a concern for not only individual journalists trying to act on a sound ethical core of values, but also for major publications who often come under fire for being either insufficiently transparent or going overboard.  For example, the Times began to get questions when it was discovered that the newspaper withheld a story about the National Security Agency eavesdropping on Americans without court-approved warrants.  For nearly a year this information was not reported and as a response to public displeasure for their omission of information, they simply said that they delayed publication to conduct further reporting.  Executive editor Bill Keller was also rather tight-lipped about the matter and only issued a couple statements regarding the timing of the publication.

Transparency has become the trendy ethical value of the last few year and it is not hard to see why many news outlets see transparency as a way to gain faith from their audiences.  Before transparency was at the top of everyone's list, objectivity was the value that was to be held above most others when reporting news.  Unfortunately, even with objectivity being a main focus, many publications still were thought to be biased by many consumers and thus lost credibility.  News outlets have now decided that if all their work is transparent, they give the illusion to the audience that they are fully informed. In an age where information is so readily available, hiding anything has become more risk than reward.