In today’s society celebrities often view the media as malicious because of hounding paparazzi and negative press; But what about the average person? Do people just like you get victimized by the media? Unfortunately the answer is yes. Ordinary people get mistreated by the media more often than you think.
To gain a better understanding I’ve provided background information and summarized two situations where the media has violated people just like you and I.
A common falsehood in the media is the misuse of still and video photographs. At times the media is lazy and takes advantage of innocent people and places them in non-favorable light. However, if a person feels they have been placed in false light they can sue for invasion of privacy.
In some states false light is not recognized. This means that people can rely on another form of protection similar to that of false light which is called defamation. Defamation protects a person’s public reputation. The best thing for both the media and its viewers is for the media to always check their facts and present their stories in correct fashion, regardless if their particular state recognizes false light or not. It’s not okay for the media to abuse a person’s rights just because they don’t feel like taking the extra time to publish a story correctly.
False-light is an invasion of privacy. It is illegal to publicize material that places an individual in a false light if the false light in which the individual was placed would be offensive to a reasonable person, and if the publisher of the material was at fault when the publication was made.
The media took advantage of a little girl crying on the street who got brushed by a speeding car in an intersection. In the Leverton v. Curtis Publishing Co. case a photograph was taken of a little girl crying on a city street of Birmingham, Alabama after she was almost run over by a car. The next day the story and photograph were published in the newspaper. The same photograph was used twenty months later by Curtis Publishing Company in addition with an article on traffic accidents that focused on pedestrian carelessness under the title, ‘They Ask To Be Killed’ by David G. Wittels. The magazine editors made it seem like she caused the accident by running in between parked cars. Meanwhile, she had nothing to do with the accident, she wasn’t even there. The media used an old unrelated photograph in a new story.
Eleanor Sue Leverton, the plaintiff, sued Curtis Publishing Company, the defendant, for publication that was a violation of her right of privacy.
The court confirmed defendant’s publication was an actionable invasion of the plaintiff’s right of privacy because its use of the photograph had nothing to do with the accident. However, the original publication of the photograph was allowed because the plaintiff at the time was the object of legitimate public interest, but the privilege was lost by the defendant because the photograph was unrelated to the story.
The editors could have avoided the law suit if they weren’t so lazy as to use a random photograph out of the files to illustrate pedestrian carelessness. The editors were the careless ones in this case.
Another example involved WJLA-TV in Washington D.C. who broadcasted a story on a new medical treatment for genital herpes. A random woman standing on a busy city street was victimized by a news station who suggested that she has genital herpes. The station ran the story on both the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. news. However, on the 11 p.m. news, the station made a crucial mistake and got sued as a result by Linda Duncan.
The 6 p.m. news began with a video clip of a busy city street full of pedestrians. Next the camera zoomed in on Duncan as she was standing on the street corner. Then Duncan turned and looked into the camera. It was clear to viewers that her identity was not concealed in any way.
However, the there was no narration during the opening footage containing Duncan. The video clip cut to a reporter standing on the street. The reporter then said, “For the twenty million Americans who have herpes, it’s not a cure.” The rest of the story followed. The 6 p.m. news ran the story correctly using the unrelated video clip because the narration didn’t occur during the opening video. In other words, it didn’t make Duncan appear as a victim.
On the other hand, the 11 p.m. news began the story with the reporter reading the opening statement, “For the twenty million Americans who have herpes, it’s not a cure,” while viewers watched the opening video clip with Duncan as the focus. The 11 p.m. broadcast gave viewers the impression that Duncan is a victim of genital herpes.
According to the court a defense motion to dismiss the privacy and defamation actions was granted as it related to the 6 p.m. newscast because there wasn’t a sufficient connection between pictures of the plaintiff and the reporter’s statement.
However, the 11 p.m. broadcast was denied a summary judgment. The court ruled that, “The juxtaposition of this film and commentary concerning twenty million Americans with herpes is sufficient to support an inference that indeed the plaintiff was a victim.”
While it’s great that false light claims exist to protect people from offensive and false facts stated about them to the public, they don’t exist in every state. A number of states don’t recognize false light claims because of the overlap with defamation and because of the unclear nature of the tort might chill free speech.
In the Bueno v. Denver Publishing Co. case the court addressed whether Colorado permits a plaintiff to sue for the tort of false light invasion of privacy.
The Justices decided to reverse the court of appeals and join jurisdictions that do not recognize false light as a viable invasion of privacy tort. Their reasoning for this decision was that the tort is “Highly duplicative of defamation both in interests protected and conduct averted. False light tort raises the spectre of a chilling effect on First Amendment freedoms.”
For individuals whose states do not recognize false light they always have defamation to fall back on, which is dumb because even though they are similar they are still slightly different. Defamation protects a person’s public reputation while false light cures the victim of a false statement for his or her emotional distress.
However, what’s important is that the media does have the power to avoid these falsehoods all together. The best thing for everyone is for the media to do their job correctly by following good journalistic practices, like being fair and accurate. Members of the media need to be careful in what they use to illustrate their work. Sometimes members of the media publish statements that seem harmless to them but may offend viewers and could result in a lawsuit if they are false. The media simply needs to use their brains before they publish something that places an individual in false light.
If the media does what’s right and respects people’s privacy it will save themselves and its viewers time and most importantly in today’s economy, money.