Minimizing HarmMinimizing harm in the SPJ Code of Ethics states that “a professional

journalist should realize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than public figures and others who seek power, influence or attention. Weigh the consequences of publishing or broadcasting personal information”

There are some cases which caught the media’s attention and got cruel criticism from the public about the ethics of a journalist.

The first case is the death of 31-year-old Prachathip Musikapon, better known as "Singha," the late guitarist of the band Sqweez Animal. He fell from the ninth floor of his condo in Thong-Lor at night last year and the second case is when the famous Thai actor Thrisadee Sahawong or Por passed away in January 2016 after spending more than two months in coma at Ramathibodi hospital due to dengue fever.

Both of these cases made the public concerned about the journalists’ ethics. The people on social media called out to the crowd of journalists who had pushed past the protective barriers to photograph the body of the deceased as disrespectful and also compared it to the media’s role in the other countries.

From this picture, you can see journalists gathering around the body of Por to take a picture of him while he the paramedics were moving his body to the ambulance to be taken to the temple for the funeral. There was so many people trying to take his picture that the cloth that was covering the body slipped off of his face and even the monk was stuck in the crowd of journalists.

During Singha’s funeral, you can see that one journalist was standing on a chair trying to get close ups of the deceased.  This raised many questions among the public, where did their ethics go? Didn’t they feel bad for the

family? Is news now competing against other organizations to get the best photos?

An example of the comments above: It was very sad that many journalists in this picture lack ethics on their work. This is a sensitive issue that should be

awared of but they forgot it and did not care about the individual privacy of Por’s family. Journalists focused on special interests to sell the news rather than the morality.

Kansas City Royals pitcher Edinson Vólquez’s father died of heart failure and his family didn’t want Volquez to know so his wife called up the manager and begged him not to tell Volquez until he had finished pitching. Some news organizations reported the death of Volquez’s father while he was pitching, even before he knew about the tragic news. Another important point in minimizing arm is that if the family does not know about the death of a family member, DO NOT reports it. Sad news of a loved ones death should come in a private setting from a family member, relative and close ones not from the news.

These are some more examples of journalists disrespecting the deceased and their families.

National Enquirer published a photo of Whitney Houston in her casket on their front page, which they had illegally got from one of the funeral staff. Even though they are violating the ethical principle of minimizing harm, this tabloid was one of the best sellers.

River Phoenix, an American actor, musician and activist who died at the age of 23 due to cocaine overdose, held a private funeral with only 60 mourners, however there were some journalists broke in a took this picture and then sold it to National Enquirer, the same tabloid that used Whitney’s photo as their cover.

ACT INDEPENDENTLY

German media bribed by CIASince Udo believed that a medical condition he has only gives him a few more years to live and is filled with remorse he decided to speak up about how the CIA has bribed the German media.. Udo was the former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which is one of Germany’s largest newspapers. He was secretly accepting news from the CIA and Germany's secret service and was spinning the news in a way that was positive for the United States and negative for its opponents.

Dr. Ulfkotte said that corruption of journalists by the CIA is accepted and is widespread in the western media. Journalists who do not cooperate either get their jobs taken away or cannot get jobs at news organization.

Arab dictators bribing journalists

The Arab reporters and editors have revealed to be corrupt because their only job is to defend the Arab dictators and their family members and henchmen. Journalists

are receiving funds from Arab dictators. Muammar Gaddafi. One example of these Arab dictators is The current uprisings in the Arab world have uncovered the reality that

Muammar Gaddafi has been the dictator of Libya for more than four decades, however he was overthrown and killed in 2011. After graduating military college, he was involved with a movement of young officers to overthrow King Idris. In 1969, he succeeded in dethroning the king and became the ruler of Libya at the age of 27.

Gaddafi started to take control of Libya and his orders were to shut down British and American military bases in Libya, demanded that foreign oil companies in Libya to share a bigger portion of revenue and replaced the Gregorian calendar with the Islamic one.

Colonel Gaddafi and his sons were said to have financially supported journalists so that they turn a blind eye to what the Libyan government is doing to its people. The beneficiaries involved include newspaper editors, reporters and columnists from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf and the Palestinian territories. Senior Arab journalists who now live in London and Paris also said that they have been included in the Libyan regime’s payroll.

Not only Gaddafi has been bribing the journalists but also other Arab dictators including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and several oil-rich Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia have been bribing journalists for decades.

Hosni Mubarak

Gulf Countries

According to Wikileaks, Saudi Arabia has control of its image not only by monitoring the media but also by purchasing loyalties from Australia to Canada. In a released article titled “Saudi Cables”, wikileaks claims that the oil rich country Saudi Arabia controls the media.

An example of how Saudi Arabia controlled the media would be when Saudi Arabia celebrated the beheading of its 100th prisoner in a period of 6 months in the year of 2015. This story was nowhere to be seen on the Arab media despite the story’s circulation on wire services. Even the foreign media was relatively quiet about this

milestone. If this type of news occurred in a different country, wouldn’t this be well known worldwide?

Saudi Arabia’s strategy for co-opting Arabs media can be done in two forms, according to the documents that is “neutralization” and “containment”. Action done to any negative coverage in the media would be to “neutralize” it. “Neutralized“ journalists are not expected to praise and defend the kingdom, but to refrain from publishing any news that reflects negatively to the kingdom. “Containment” is publishing praiseworthy news stories to paint a positive picture of the kingdom and also attack those who criticize the Gulf state.

“The kingdom effectively buys reverse ‘shares’ in the media outlets, where cash ‘dividends’ flow the opposite way, from the shareholder to the media outlet. In return Saudi Arabia gets political ‘dividends’ – an obliging press,” write Wikileaks.

Sources http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2016/journalists-bribes-arab-dictators

http://www.govtslaves.info/real-reason-killed-gaddafi/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi

http://www.ndtv.com/people/who-is-moammar-gaddafi-565638

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0300490/bio

http://world.time.com/2012/10/18/how-did-gaddafi-die-a-year-later-unanswered-questions-and-bad-blood/

http://www.biography.com/people/muammar-al-qaddafi-39014

http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/muammargaddafi.html

http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2015/12/wikileaks-saudi-arabia-bribes-foreign-media-for-positive-coverage/

http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/866386

https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/buying-silence

www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

http://stars.topix.com/slideshow/16035/slide10

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2015/10/28/royals-edinson-volquez-learns-fathers-death-after-start/74726156/http://thairats.com/%E0%B8%82%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%88%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%81_social/%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%AD-%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%A4%E0%B8%A9%E0%B8%8E%E0%B8%B5-%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%82%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A7-%E0%B8%8A%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A7%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%99%E0%B9%87%E0%B8%95

http://igdara.in.th/singha-press/