The Ethics of Protest Coverage

Mady Nutter 

mn830117@ohio.edu 

madelynnenutter@gmail.com 

 

You have probably heard the saying, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." This adage is similar to a guiding principle of the Radio Television Digital News Association's Code of Ethics which states, "The right to broadcast, publish, or otherwise share information does not mean it is always right to do so." 

Given the months of protests for Black Lives Matter, I find this principle is relevant now more than ever. 

Black Lives Matter protestors in Salt Lake City, Utah via AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

Through social media, journalists and protesters alike reported on the protests occurring in cities all across the country. Whether it was an official news article link tweeted or an Instagram story of a crowd at a rally posted, social media timelines were flooded with coverage. 

This widespread dissemination of information appeared to be a great asset to the protests. However, it was not until a couple days into the protests that I came across a Tweet which made me rethink my previous conclusion. 

"This is good coverage but I think we should question the practice of naming protestors in the press, especially because we know they often face retaliation," Britni de la Cretaz said in a quote tweet of The Daily Beast's coverage of the Minneapolis protests.

It was not long after discovering this tweet, that I came across several other tweets linking an article about 6 mysterious deaths tied to the Ferguson protests. I finally realized how deadly this retaliation against protesters could be, even outside of the violence of some protests.

I began to question how an ethics code principle of "minimize harm" plays a role in protest coverage. 

Photos and videos shared across social media seemed to be galvanizing whole cities to make change in their communities. But if that same media could potentially put community activists in grave danger, is it ethical to be posting them at all? 

Where is the balance between informing the public and minimizing harm? 

Perhaps we could blur or crop faces out of photos and videos, or maybe we could leave names out of photo captions and source quotes. Some of these efforts may work well for individuals posting on social media, however, I did not feel that any of these changes could be implemented without drastically affecting the credibility of a journalist's reporting. 

According to Kelly McBride's NPR Public Editor article, "Photojournalists — and their news organizations — certainly can consider genuine concerns for the safety of a person in an image. But rather than default to altering the image, in the spirit of recording the truth of circumstances, the journalist might first look for another image that conveys a comparable moment without jeopardizing an individual."

Ensuring that people are receiving coverage on these developing historic events is crucial. It is also even more important that we are doing everything we can to protect the Black lives for which we are currently protesting. 

Examining the ethics behind what we post as journalists and social media users is a critical step to ensuring the safety of protesters.