FREE SPEECH: Where Do You Stand?

One of the aftermath issues following the Success Academy shootings in Cleveland is a drill just about every newsroom and journalist goes through -- or should go through.

WKYC's Eric Mansfield blogged about the student who reaped rewards from the checkbook journalists paying for his homemade video shot inside the classroom while a 14-year old fellow student shot outside the classroom, wounding four before taking his own life. A national program shelled out two grand without blinking, Eric reports, and local news shops followed suit (bidding remained in the hundreds) once word got out. WKYC did not join the tragedy auction but did air the video when NBC made it available to network affiliates.

Was it wrong for the student, and the student's mother, do quickly jump on the profit wagon with the blood of his fellow students and teachers still fresh on the hallway floors?

It is not unusual for networks, newspapers or magazines to pay for content; after all, those out-of-town but appearing in-studio guests on programs such as CNN's Larry King and Glenn Beck, or MSNBC's Hard Ball, NBC's Today Show, ABC's Good Morning America, CBS's Morning Show, Fox & Friends -- most of the "real people", non-professional guests don't pay their own way to fly to New York, Washington, or Atlanta and then pop for a night's hotel stay for the pure joy of being on TV. In-studio means someone foots the bill for travel, and then some.

There's a fine line in television between the entertainment division programs and the news division programs; viewers usually can't tell the difference between the hard-driving CNN Showbiz Today or Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood, even as they air on the "news" channel or immediately following a news program. We broadcasters do a pretty good job of making that line fuzzy, and it isn't a stretch to note the public has better things to do with their time than grow sophisticated to easily recognize the difference.

Phil Trexler of the Akron Beacon Journal noted on Friday's NewsNight Akron program it is common practice for the paper to pay "stringer fees", usually a nominal amount. We practice the same policy with stringers and freelancers both in broadcast on WAKR and online on AkronNewsNow with some sports reporters, mostly Jeff Brewer who contributes coverage from pro teams as well as features on high school sports. Jeff is also a blogger on Suburban League athletics).

The newspaper/magazine equivalent to the networks is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for that "shot" of Brittney dropping her child on the sidewalk coming out of Starbucks, or Lindsay stumbling out of a nightclub after rehab. Those photos reap huge rewards just as the video does because the public wants to see those images, despite protests of disgust. In the business, it's the "what's under the sheet?" question: driving past a car wreck, everyone looks to see even though they know it won't be pretty. It isn't one of our finest traits, but it is what it is.

Who's wrong -- the video shooter or the TV/radio/newspaper/website paying for the media?

I find it hard to condemn the young man who shot the Success Academy video or his mother; they had a product in demand and customers willing to pay for it. The responsibility on what we as journalists air, post or publish isn't with the "user generated users" or freelancers providing the content, it is ours as traditional media (newspapers, magazine, radio, TV) or "new" media (Internet) since we weild the editorial decision on what content we believe our respective audiences want.

That decision is complicated and in today's fragmented media world not just one with journalism ethics attached; the differences in acceptance by the wider media audience measured in ratings points, circulation or unique visitor page views places huge economic considerations on those decisions. Also consider the First Amendment provides for very little in the form of regulation (yelling "fire" in crowded theaters, personal health privacy and espionage secrets excepted) for a very good reason: the Founding Fathers opted to put the power in the hands of the people, and not someone deciding for us what we would see and hear.

The market reality is: if viewers, readers and listeners have such widespread revulsion and are repulsed by these images and sounds those airing, publishing or posting the material won't make a living. When most viewers, readers and listeners demand and expect this material those responsible for the editorial decisions must and will weigh the economic consequences along with their best journalistic judgment, citizen or professional.

In our version of democracy, freedom of speech isn't bound by the limits of good taste or family-appropriate values. That decision is left to us, as it should be: I'd rather have a society openly debating excess rather than authority silencing speech.