Assessment 4: Annotated Bibliography

Coleman, R. (2011). Journalists’ moral judgement about children. Journalism Practice, 5(3), 257-271. doi: 10.1080/17512786.2010.523588

As an academic at the University of Texas, Renita Coleman focusses her research on visual communication and ethics in journalism, resulting in a well-informed insight into journalists’ moral judgement and treatment of children in the media. The author outlines that there are very few written standards to guide reporters on dealing with children in the media and so she initiated a controlled experiment whereby she examined if 99 journalists in the USA held different attitudes, made different decisions and held themselves to a higher standard of moral judgement when children were involved. While the study revealed that journalists are more concerned with correctly representing, protecting and maintaining the privacy of children than adults, their actions did not align with their words as they did not use significantly higher levels of moral judgement with regards to children. The conclusions of the author were justified and well supported by the data and results gathered from the experiment. In addition, the large number of citations throughout the text added credibility to the views put forward by Coleman with regards to this ethically questionable subject. This issue is currently highly relevant with the large media coverage of the international custody battle for the 4 Australian-Italian sisters.

Cary, G. (2012, May 14). Grandmother Kate with Greg Cary.  4BC – Mornings with Greg Cary. Retrieved from http://www.4bc.com.au/blogs/greg-cary-blog/please-help-us/20120514-1ym4m.html

This radio interview with the grandmother of the four girls in the custody dispute is obviously significantly biased towards the view of the mother’s family. As such, the accounts of events given by the grandmother may not be credible or reliable due to her direct involvement in the dispute. The scope of the interview is the ruling for the girls to be taken back to Italy and the series of events that led them to move to Australia in the first place. Greg Cary is a respected media identity in Queensland and hosts the morning radio program on 4BC. The questionable credibility of the article is of no fault of Greg Cary or the media organisation due to the one-sided nature of interviews and it was evident throughout the interview that Cary possessed differing information relating to the legal action. This is not representative of the coverage of the issue as a whole, but rather only a snapshot. With regards to the issues discussed in Coleman’s article, the journalists showed no interest in pursuing information about the children further than enquiring about their legal situation. However, although she was a family member, the grandmother was in a position to possibly misrepresent the children as she gave apparent quotes from the four sisters, as well as a second-hand quote from the father.

McKerrow, G. (2012, October 4). Deported. Channel 7 - Sunrise.  Retrieved from http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/-/watch/30773999/sunrise-news-break-october-4/

This report by reputable Channel 7 journalist Georgina McKerrow on the popular morning news program, Sunrise, is an account of the 4 sisters being taken from their mother and brought to Brisbane International Airport so as to be returned to their father in Italy. The television medium lends itself to the most dramatic and emotional telling of the story and this can often lead to exaggerated and misrepresented reports. However, in this case, the credibility of the report cannot be doubted as the reporter’s commentary is paired with the actual footage of the four girls being forcibly removed from their home. The credibility and unbiased nature of the report is evident as the footage of the distraught mother is followed by the court ruling which declares that the girls had been unfairly influenced by the mother and her family. On the other hand, it does raise the ethical questions posed in Coleman’s article with regards to representing the children through the media. While the faces of the girls and their mother were pixelated for privacy from the public, they have certainly not received privacy from the media who have taken extensive footage of the family.

Petersen, F. (2012, May 15). Australia: four sisters go into hiding to avoid repatriation with father to Italy. Global Post. Retrieved from http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/120515/australia-teenage-girls-italy-hague-convention-child-abduction  

Freya Petersen, a reputable journalist and previously a reporter and chief of staff for the Sydney Morning Herald, is the Queensland correspondent with Global Post, an American news site that focusses on international reporting. This article, written in May 2012, was relatively early in the media saga of the four girls caught in the middle of the custody dispute. It reports that after having lost the family court appeal, the four girls had gone on the run with their great-grandmother to avoid being returned to their father in Italy. The author portrays the girls as victims and uses statements from them as evidence to support the abusive nature of their father, therefore creating an obvious bias towards the plight of the children and totally neglecting the viewpoint of the father. Through use of the direct quotes, the author was able to appeal emotionally to the readers through the text medium. While the article has respected the privacy of the girls to a certain extent by not using their names and photographs, the issues discussed in Coleman’s article (cited above) with regards to misrepresentation of children in the media and the credibility of ‘vulnerable parties’ as sources, places doubt upon the overall reliability of the article.