How many ethical questions?
Kevin Marsh
is director of OffspinMedia and a former Today editor
The Sun's'exclusive' yesterday - 14 November 2009 - about Professor David Nutt (or, more accurately, his children) raises so many questions for journalists it's difficult to know where to start.
Three spring immediately to mind; the first is the ethical justification of attacking a public figure via his children. Whatever the arguments over the privacy expectations of public figures (and the assumption that any public figure can expect to have his/her entire life trawled over is increasingly being questioned and challenged), what is the justification of exposing to any kind of scrutiny a public figure's children who have not elected to live their lives in public?
Second, the ethical justification of trawling young people's - or indeed anyone's - social networking pages. Even if there is a genuine public interest in the person, are journalists right to assume that all material on these sites is 'public'? And if some pictures or comments are hidden and require group membership to access them, is the journalist justified in joining that group ... presumably being less than frank about his/her association with, say, The Sun?
Third: what is The Sun inviting us to think here? That Professor Nutt is a bad father? That we should look at his children to see the kind of people we'd all become if his 'claims' about drugs were translated into policy? Note, incidentally, the use of the word 'claimed', as in Professor Nutt:
"claimed cannabis, ecstasy and LSD are safer than booze and fags".
So, not a science-based assessment then? Just a 'claim'.
It's telling that once again The Sun seems to have misjudged its audience - if the comments on the story are anything to go by.
More importantly, though, is the obvious question: does this article contribute anything to the public debate on drugs policy? Or does it narrow that debate, reducing it to a simple question of what we think about Professor Nutt and his capabilities as a father as evidenced by what his children have chosen to put on their social networking sites?
In which context, I'm wondering about the ad which headed the page at the time I accessed it. And what it says about The Sun's attitude to responsible parenting ... if that's the question here, which it seems to be.
Yeah, OK ... po-faced or what. But members of the public do have the right to ask what is the moral universe any journalist occupies.
