Code of ethics for media needed

THE EDITOR: News truly is a commercial business. The news medium with the ‘best’ story will get a bigger audience, which will lead to more money from advertising and more money for the owners. The name of the game is making money. This could not have been more shamelessly seen than in TTT’s news coverage on April 6 of the accident in which Pradeep and Cameron Lochan were killed. In the news clip, the sheet covering 3-year-old Cameron was casually removed and the dead child was shown in his blood-soaked infant seat. It is disgraceful that a dead little boy could be exploited for ratings like that, not to mention the traumatising results for the child’s family and for his mother in particular.

What would have been the worst day in her life would have been made even more painful by this dehumanising footage. Furthermore, such crudity seems to be the norm in news reporting. Perhaps because it is less work for inept reporters. There is no thought about the effects on the audience... on the mother of a dead child... on the mother of two infants like myself, who just can’t seem to shake the grisly image of that dead child on TV. The reporter and the cameraman assigned to the story obviously have no journalistic training. In fact they have no business in journalism. But what about the TV station’s news editor and news director? The best standard to judge such a thing is to consider if it were your child in this lurid footage. Press freedom is important in any democracy. However, there is a desperate need for a Code of Ethics for the media. Firm standards must be put in place to guide coverage and to prevent such abuse of media privilege. 

Anjanee Rattansingh-Persad
Lange Park
Chaguanas