Do you find it ethical for certain news stories to be simply ignored by the American mainstream media? Specifically news stories which have massive impacts and is information that should be detrimental to the public. I'll give two examples.
The Baxter Corporation's 'Accidental' Avian Flu Vaccine Contamination
In early 2009, Baxter International, the largest exporter of pharmaceutical products in the U.S., was commissioned the create an H5N1 (Avian Flu) vaccine for eighteen countries. The vaccine was created, and shipped out to it's various destinations. Some of the vaccine was sent to the Czech Republic, where it was by chance run through a second session of testing (which was normally not protocol, and thus, very lucky). All of the test rats that the vaccine was given to died. The Czech lab researched it further, and found that the vaccine was actually just live Avian Flu. This chance testing prevented thousands of people from being injected with live H5N1 cultures. Baxter is a major pharmaceutical company that nearly killed thousands of people. Why is it that this was nowhere to be found in the mainstream media?
Lakota Indians Secede From the United States
In late 2007, the Lakota Indian nation submitted a formal declaration of independence to the United States government, and seceded from the union, forming their own autonomous nation in South Dakota. They contacted embassies around the world asking to be recognized as a sovereign country, and erected their own internal infrastructure. Whether this is legal or not is not the point. Whether this is even valid or not is not the point. Why was this given no press beyond a few snippets on the FOX News websites and literally zero air time on television and not even a whisper of it in the newspapers? Isn't this a very importation issue? A Native American reservation seceded from the union! Shouldn't people be aware of these things?
Why are stories selectively ignored in the United States media? Both of these examples could be potentially negative for the image of the U.S. Are we only reporting stories that align with the direction of our agenda? Is it not important that people are informed of such matters - not matter what the implications of ramifications of making them public?
Further, isn't it dangerous that we're kept in the dark about a lot of these things? FOX and CNN can extensively report these if they want; so why aren't they?
3 comments:
I honestly don't know why such important hard news, is neglected such as your examples with Baxter and the Lakota Indian reservation. Especially, when it is detrimental to public safety.
I think it is the mainstream media's obligation to immediately release information to the public, in the event that avoiding to do so could exacerbate our health, environment, and safety.
Maybe newsrooms are too overwhelmed with so much irrelevant information that they neglect releasing news that is integral to our health and safety. But that is still no excuse.
In response, as the next generation of journalists, we should focus on bringing stories about issues and causes of substance to the attention of North Americans. Instead of wrapping our heads around nonsense.
Isn't the trend a bit strange, though? In both of the examples provided, along with most other major cases, the stories being neglected are always the ones which would shed a negative light upon the integrity of the U.S. in some form.
Native Americans seceding? Major U.S. pharmaceutical companies nearly killing thousands of people? It seems like the news we're avoiding is the news that we don't want to hear.
I also think this is about deciding what is important and what is not. Newapapers in particular, get to decide what news to bring to us and where it sits - either on the front page or somewhere on the back pages. Sometimes, important stories are downplayed simply by putting them on an inside page.
There is no simple solution to this problem, but it is something that the public needs to be more aware of.
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