Balancing editorial decisions with ethics
Editorial judgement is tricky. We do not have prescriptive guidelines to assist editors in arriving at a fair, responsible and professional decision to publish or not to publish. Generations of editors have had to trust their instinct and just hope that they get it right. They don’t always get it right, of course, because they are, you got it, only human and have to contend with the imperfections of homo sapiens.
No two editors would render the same judgement on the publishability or otherwise of a story. Each man would base his decision on what he believes would best serve the interest and satisfy the taste of his core readers. The editor of a newspaper that caters primarily to top decision makers in government and the private sector would necessarily be high-minded in his editorial decisions. On the other hand, the editor of what the British call shop a floor newspaper, our own equivalent is the soft sell newspaper, would be less highminded in what he serves his core readers. He can afford to publish junk.
Even among editors of highend, also known as quality newspapers, editorial judgement is far from being uniform. After all, variety is as much the spice of newspapering as it is of life. While one editor would consider a story not worth publishing and spike it, another editor would consider it a gem; a story that merits page three in one newspaper might make the leap to the front page in a banner headline in another newspaper. It is the way the cookie crumbles in the fourth estate of the realms and the republics.
None of the editors in the above scenario is professionally wrong in how he treats a particular story. Editorial judgment is an interplay of forces within and outside the newspaper. Readers believe they must be properly served. An editor faces a major task in trying to decide what would please thousands or millions of his readers, none of whom he knows personally. Tough. An editor must base his decision to publish or not to publish against the cardinal professional principle of both the need and the right of the public to know.
This is the toughest aspect of the editorial decision-making process. It is the slippery slope and many an editor has slipped down the slope. You may find this ironical but an editor derives his power from assuming the right to tell his readers what he believes they should know. No editor could publish everything that lands on his desk. As the world’s incontestable professional gate keeper, it is his duty to filter, pick and choose the stories he believes would make for a better society.
An editor asks himself three questions on every story he considers for publication, his own three-way test, if you like. Is it professional? Is it ethical and in good taste? Is it in accord with the editorial policy, the ground norm in his newspaper kingdom?
Of these, let us consider the ethical or the good taste question. The Daily Trust of June 23, 2023, promoted a very sad story on its front page with this heartstopping headline: “Threemonth-old
Nasarawa baby stolen from mother’s bed, raped, fights for life.” The story was reported in full on page 54 of the newspaper with the headline: “Saving the Adoga baby.” It was accompanied by the photo of the mother with her face blurred out and that of the baby in the hands of doctors.
The decision to promote and publish this story was obviously based on the principle of the people’s right to know that a heinous and heart-breaking crime was committed in Nasarawa State. It was patently professional. There is a big but here. Rape cases, even of adults, are treated with circumspection to protect the traumatised victims. Neither the police nor hospital authorities would release the names of victims. There is even greater need to protect their identities if they are minors. The rape or more correctly, the attempted murder of a three-month-old baby must have presented the editor with a tough decision. Should he let the public know about this crime to show how utterly depraved our country has increasingly become or should he have had some consideration for public sensitivity? With the increasing cases of rape, it might be argued that a story such as this needs to be told to alert the public to one more critical challenge we face as a nation. Our girls and women are now endangered species.
I invite our editors to think about the decision to promote and publish the story the way it was published. Was it ethical and in good taste? Was the professional decision to publish it balanced against the exposure of the baby and her family to the public?
in Kaduna Polytechnic. In this interview, he talks Yashim Bivan is an artist who studied architecture buildings, and more. Excerpts: about his passion for art, why it’s related to designing
You recently started what you tagged ‘lockdown series’ on social media with drew a lot of attention. How would you describe the experience?
It was a fulfilling experience.
The One Artwork per Day was inspired by three factors: I needed to tell a story about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected us. I had so many ideas and needed to explore them. Lastly, it was meant to kill the idleness and boredom.
A day before the lockdown began, I called my friend, Charles Achibi, who is a fellow artist, and shared the idea with him. He liked it but unfortunately, he was engrossed in another project. I wasn’t discouraged, rather, I tagged a couple of my creative friends to join the challenge as soon as I produced the first work and posted on Facebook. At first, the response wasn’t what I expected but subsequently, other artists joined, including my kids and some of my friends’ children.
You did pencil drawings that include portraits and abstract paintings. What influenced the works you created, particularly
your Day 27 piece titled ‘Family Portrait,’ which depicted three human forms?
It’s an acrylic abstract painting that depicted a family’s togetherness during COVID-19. Before the pandemic, you hardly
find a situation where families stay together in such a manner due to one reason or the other. My family is a typical example. The lockdown period provided an opportunity for bonding with your spouse and kids.
So, the ideas were fresh and easy for me to put together. The works I produced were either ball pen, poster colour or acrylic. None of them were in pencil.
Aside being an artist, you are also an architect. How would you describe your journey in these two worlds and how related would you say they are?
Art is closely related to architecture. This always makes the journey more beautiful for me. Architecture is simply an idea conceived in the mind and realized in the physical. So also is art, generally. This makes them very much related. They share similar elements and principles and also their media of conception, the pencil, is the same. In other words, you will do better as an architect if you are an artist.
Going down memory lane, what was it like working on your very first
piece of art?
If I remember clearly, my earliest piece of art has to be the super hero figures I used to draw back in primary one. I most times borrow comics from my classmates so I can draw the images, sometimes in my exercise books. It was a passion I developed at that age, all thanks to my left hand. As a kid, my mum would hit my hand whenever I eat or do stuff with it. After a while, my dad advised she let me be. I was destined to be who I am using the left part of my body.
Some architects tend to treat drawing and painting more as a hobby. What is it for you?
because of this passion, I make lots of investments in terms of materials. I buy and store even if I won’t use them immediately. Also, I usually need to be in a particular mental state, either good or bad, and trust me, some of my works were produced while I was in an unpleasant mood. I intend to explore and fuse in both crafts till I no longer have the physical energy. As long as I live.
What are you working on at the moment?
Presently, I am working on some architectural designs. Before that, I produced an abstract painting using acrylic colour.