Ethical Decisions Made While Covering Celebrity Entertainment Stories

In regards to ethics in journalism, the rules seem to be applied more loosely when the story involves a celebrity. One of the ethical decision that was made this past weekend by journalist who covered the Cardi B and Nicki Minaj fight was whether or not to publish the video of their fight. CNN was one of the many publictions that decided that decided that including the video in their article was ethical.

However, it is not the video that automatically plays when you click on the story. Instead what plays is a video of two reporters discussing the sexism behind the idea that their can only be one top female hip-hop artists. This is where CNN begins to tow show its bias because they are using this as chance to skew the story into a feminist issue.

While the written portion of the story does a firly good job of covering the story down the middle, some of the language used can skew readers into believing otherwise. In the article, it stats Cardi B uploaded a “profanity-filled video” addressing why she attacked Minaj.

CN could have easily stated that she posted a video on instagram, but by inluding the phrase “profanity-filled video’ it instead paints Cardi B in a negative light to your reader. That is a decision that a reader should make on their own by watching the video themselves.

The article in a sense simplifies the issues between the two because it says that Minaj criticized Cardi B’s parenting skills, but as readers we never really know what was said between the wo to cause this hate. We are not even made ware as to whether the comments were said in private or in public. However, I will give CNN a pass in this regard since at the time I am writing this they have yet to receive any comments from either of their agency teams.

Overall CNN did a good job at informing the public on this situation because . However, I would have included what the possible legal ramifications of this situation could be. This is an attempt at a public assault and as readers we should know what the ramifications could be, or if they’ll be any at all.

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