There is a line between journalism and exploitation. It should not be difficult to find.
This weekend, a video appeared on social media showing a partially undressed man behaving erratically in the parking lot of a Cullman motel.
The location was identified and the man’s condition was presented to an audience for public consumption. After criticism began mounting, the post was deleted.
That sequence raises a question far more important than who posted it or how many people watched it: What public purpose did it serve?
Did the video expose corruption? Did it warn the public of an immediate danger? Did it document misconduct by an elected official, law enforcement officer or someone else entrusted with public authority? Did publishing it provide information people genuinely needed to know?
Or did somebody’s humiliation simply make compelling content?
There is an enormous difference.
Journalists sometimes document terrible things. We cover fatal wrecks, fires, shootings, overdoses, arrests and tragedies that forever change families.
There are times when photographs and video are disturbing because the reality we are reporting is disturbing. Journalism cannot sanitize every uncomfortable truth.
But journalism requires something beyond possessing a camera and arriving before everyone else.
It requires judgment.
The question should never simply be, “Can we publish this?” The more important question is, “Why are we publishing this?”
Having a camera does not make someone a journalist. Neither does having thousands of followers, a Facebook page or the ability to arrive quickly at a wreck scene.
Journalism requires verification, context, fairness, accountability and an understanding that the people on the other side of that camera are human beings.
The Cullman Tribune is an established news organization, and with that comes responsibilities we willingly accept.
We are expected to verify information before publishing it, distinguish allegations from established facts, correct our mistakes, provide context and weigh the public’s legitimate need to know against the unnecessary harm publication could cause.
Those standards apply when a story generates 100 clicks and when it generates 100,000.
A social media page can call itself news. Anyone can put “media,” “news” or “daily” beside a name. But the label does not create journalism.
The work does.
And sometimes doing that work responsibly means lowering the camera.
There is another contradiction here that deserves to be discussed, particularly in a community where expressions of Christian faith are common.
Christianity teaches mercy, compassion and concern for people at their lowest. Those principles mean very little if compassion disappears the moment someone’s suffering presents an opportunity for engagement, shares, laughs or advertising revenue.
Faith is not demonstrated by the Bible verse posted between tragedies. It is demonstrated by how we treat the human being standing in the middle of one.
That principle extends far beyond one video.
A person trapped inside a wrecked vehicle is not a prop. Someone suffering from addiction is not a punchline.
A person experiencing an apparent crisis is not free entertainment simply because the crisis occurred somewhere a camera could reach them.
An injured police officer, a grieving parent or someone having the worst day of his or her life does not surrender every claim to dignity because somebody reached for a cellphone.
There are circumstances when showing those moments serves an undeniable public interest. When it does, journalists should explain why.
When it does not, perhaps we should ask what we have become if another person’s pain is valuable primarily because people will watch it.
And before anyone dismisses this as one news organization criticizing another, hold The Cullman Tribune to precisely the same standard.
We make mistakes. We have made them before and we will make them again. When we get something wrong, call us on it. When we cross a line, demand better. Accountability cannot be something journalists impose on everyone else while exempting themselves.
The people appearing in our stories are human beings before they are news.
The defendant in handcuffs. The person battling addiction. The officer injured beside the highway. The mother screaming at a wreck scene. The man stumbling through a motel parking lot.
Human beings first.
Their worst moments may sometimes become news. They should never become our entertainment.
Sometimes the most decent thing a person holding a camera can do is put it down.
Noah Galilee is the publisher and co-owner of The Cullman Tribune.
