Palestinian Journalists Boycott the HAMAS

[ethics]

Hamas activists assaulted news cameramen filming on Thursday in a densely populated neighborhood in Gaza City where three Palestinians were killed in a series of explosions while making bombs for use against Israeli forces.

In response, Palestinian journalists have boycotted Hamas related news, including funerals for the three dead.

In doing so, they've essentially admitted that, since Hamas and other terrorist organizations desire attention, media involvement is an incentive for terror.

At what point does objective news coverage become, merely by existing, a source of bias or even an exacerbating influence?

This question gets raised every so often in relation to other stories; however, here we have the media knowingly manipulating real news for what seems like a good reason.

Is it the right thing to do or should they merely accept that journalism is sometimes dangerous? Will it ultimately serve or undermine objectivity?

Full story (http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=226110&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0)

[Coot]

I really can't answer that with respect to what the Palestinians are doing as I don't know how open their media is in the first place. In this country, I don't think we should be clamping down on the reporting of news...we should however be clamping down on the talking heads vying for face time....in fact a bigass clamp with massive hydraulics to drive it would be nice.

[ditch]

The reporting of newsworthy items should always be allowed and encouraged. When the reporting of news turns into "infotainment" and ratings chasing, facts get distorted, only sensational items get top billing and the talking heads, as Coot says, become more important than the stories they are telling. It is irrelevant who tells it but makes an enormous difference to the majority of people.
For a journalist objectivity is paramount.