Sony hack & ethics in journalism

Late last month Sony was hacked and in addition to several movies, documents and emails were stolen. The press has been combing through these documents and writing articles about anything they've been able to glean from them. I've found it very troubling that not enough people are upset about this.

The Verge tried to excuse their reporting with this piece from their entertainment editor. Their excuse boils down to: if we didn't report on it, someone else would have - and then we would have reblogged it. The problem I have with that excuse is that in order to decide whether or not something was newsworthy from the stolen documents - and let's make sure to call them stolen, and not "leaked" like Vox likes to do - is that they had to willfully sift through it first in order to find something that was newsworthy.

Perhaps others may see it differently, but it feels as if they could have looked through all the nude celeb photos that were hacked and excused their behaviour by saying they had to look at Jennifer Lawrence naked because there might have been something newsworthy in that cache of photos.

The excuse that Sony is a company and the celebs are people doesn't fly with me, since it wasn't Sony the corporate entity that wrote those emails, but real people employed by Sony did. Shouldn't their privacy be protected like anyone elses?

Shouldn't we be calling this what it is: unethical journalists profiting through pageviews from ill-gotten documents they would not have had access to if not for this crime. I expected as much from Gawker-owned sites, but I'm continually disappointed that Vox media has been following in their footsteps.

This may be sad, but the "Journalism ethics" argument just makes me gag now.

Seriously, the only reason any site reports on anything is the clicks/reads. People want to read on this, so they report on it.

you're right in that its real shitty and an invasion of privacy. the problem is nobody gives a shit about the privacy of random dudes.

Unless journalists are doing the hacking I don't see an issue. This has been done since the dawn of time. It's basically journalism 101 to jump on any info that people would want to read. I've seen enough movies to know that what I know about this is pretty accurate.

I don't really see any point to this thread, though. It's all whining, in my opinion. If you don't like something, don't look at it. Don't read it. They'll lose money from the loss of traffic and lose their job and they'll go away if that's what you want. Talking about it, reading it, watching it, whatever... it just gives the things you don't like what it needs to survive.

If it survives regardless of you that's because you're in the minority. Which you most likely are.

While journalists could have handled private information more carefully, they are not bound by privacy code. In fact, I want my journalists to be able to call out anyone if possible. We've seen libel laws upheld in the UK put some videogame journalists out of their job. Libel is a toxic defense mechanism.

It is journalists who are going through documents that were stolen from the hack and then relaying what they find in them. It does have something to do with journalism.

Many got it right on one hand: reporting that celebs were hacked but not providing the information (nude pics) that were stolen. In this situation, they've taken it upon themselves to go through the documents to see if they find anything newsworthy with them being the arbiters of what is newsworthy. Is it important news to find out how much James Franco was paid for the Interview?

This isn't about some phone being left in public or someone on the set of a movie leaking information. This is stolen material and the press profiting off it by generating clicks from it.

I'd agree on the one hand, but on the other there's a lot in those leaked emails that shines a light on the ugly racism and sexism that still has a pretty solid foothold in Hollywood. In that sense, shining a light on it is important, and (I would argue) newsworthy. On the other hand, all the posts like "oh hey Sony had this dumb idea for a new Spiderman movie" or "boy nobody in Hollywood knows how to make a coherent-looking Powerpoint" are interesting, in a "this is how the sausage is made" way, but probably aren't that newsworthy. The hack's a bummer, because a lot of personal info got out (SSNs and the like), but man intellectually there's some fascinating stuff in there (also some depressing stuff re: the sexist/racist bullshit).

There's a balance to the coverage that's lacking--if something is truly newsworthy (and calling out racism and sexism is always gonna be newsworthy in my books), it should be reported on--but I mean I got a lot out of looking at some of the leaked marketing materials and presentations (I work in marketing, albeit in a completely different industry, and it's interesting to see how other folks do it who make a lot more money than I do (poorly, apparently)) but I wouldn't call it "news."

if you should strike me down i shall become far more ethical than you can imagine...

It's kinda funny considering most information is caused by leaks from internal sources. This just so happens to be a leak of magnified proportions that most of the public was able to gain access to.

Also Sony a Kanye West movie? Really? Do we really need to fill that maniacal madman more delusions of grandeur. You released one hot album your first one College Dropout a decade ago. Get over it.

The only thing I can really take from all this is that I really want to see The Interview.

I already wanted to, but the idea that North Korea, or NK sympathizers, did this to get back at them makes me want to see it more to spite them.

I think you are equating this to cases where it can legitimately be argued that reporting on them served a public interest.

A whistleblower may reveal information about a company's wrongdoings to a reporter, usually along with a government agency, that was technically stolen. In those cases, it tends to serve the public good if a company was cheating investors or polluting an area where neighbors got sick. Whether you think Snowden is a hero or a traitor, it can be argued that he did the public a service by revealing the government was invading citizens' privacy. In the former, they usually have a specific claim that they are trying to provide documents to prove. In the latter, he provided a document dump that pointed to all the spying the government was up to.

In this case, the hackers did a document dump with no specific claims. Journalists are digging through them to determine what they think is newsworthy. At that point, they've made it clearly valid for someone to go through any stolen information, including celeb nudes, to determine if there is anything newsworthy.

If you don't think there's any point to a thread, take your own advice.

My favorite part of that was Channing Tatum's email.

Aol.

Channing's email is particularly amazing. In a message between Pascal, a few Sony executives and his 22 Jump Street co-star Jonah Hill, the charismatic star congratulates the team on their box office hit with an ... errr, enthusiastic email.

Ethics, sure. I don't know.

I've been torn about the Sony leak.

I share the impression that this feels unethical. I mean, Sony isn't the government, and the topic isn't torture, spying, etc. It's movie silliness. A lot of gossip mostly. So, there isn't an excuse of "The public needs to know!"

On the other hand, I've found many of the stories from it very interesting, and it sheds a lot of light on the industry. It definitely sheds a lot of light on Sony in particular. Personally, I wouldn't seek out information on the leak, as it feels personally unethical, but when outlets have shoved it in my face along with real news, it's tough to ignore. It's a weird situation, and I have a feeling we're all somewhat complicit in this nonsense. Similar to the way we often indulge wild news coverage of shooters and big celebrity trials.

The wild thing is, this leak has a lot of silly and dumb stuff in it. Like... Kaz Hirai personally intervened in The Interview to change the crazy ending. He objected to Seth Rogen about just how gory Kim Jong Un's death was.His head exploding was too explodey. He wanted less fire and head pieces. And they actually toned it down to be a little less graphic.

Like, that's the craziest stinking thing. Kaz Hirai discussing the details of Kim Jong Un's head exploding with Seth Rogen. You can't write something that absurd.

As far as I know nothing about the leaks reveal anything illegal or shows Sony misleading the public or stockholders or anything so there's no ethical reason at all to publish these documents.

You know if reporters were acting in a vacuum, I wouldn't have a lot of problems with this. Most of what Sony said behind closed doors was stupid and they deserve the criticism they are getting for it.

But given who engineered the leak/hack and the chilling real world fallout from this, I'm very uncomfortable with mainstream media contributing to this act. They aren't just reporting the news, they are making it by unwittingly aiding the hackers and causing real harm by doing so. These leaks have been weaponized.

It's setting a horrible precedent and given how successful it's been it's almost certainly going to spawn copycats which I fear is going to result in really horrible reactive legislation in Washington.

Did someone say ethics?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-how-a-maureen-756872

I think it can feel ethically wrong, and I sympathize with the people who have their private conversations leaked, but I think the line where it would be ethically wrong is the same line where it'd be illegal. That is the people reporting on it also having stolen the information or been apart of the hack itself. Most leaks affect really people, just because one form of leak concerns government overstepping its own authority and one is gossip column garbage doesn't make one ethically or morally wrong.

Also when I read the reason for the hack I totally thought this was a fake leak to promote what looks like a really dumb and forgettable looking movie.

@truthtellah: I feel it's like this rubbernecking at a car accident mentality that we tend to have. At some point we need to think, that's somebody's life we're treating as a source of entertainment - and not in a reality TV show sort of way.

To be fair, at the very least Polygon's been going the click-bait route for some time now.

Unfortunately, with the internet being what it is, people are chomping at the bit to see who can get out the juiciest, sleaziest gossip out there, ethics be damned. Ethics, unfortunately, don't get clicks the way banal gossip does. Gotta get them ad dollars, yo.

I agree. It seems to be an even bigger issue in the Internet age. We're at a weird spot for information and privacy. It's something we're going to have to consider more and more. This demand for access and connectedness continues to grow, but more people are starting to champion a pushback on behalf of privacy and greater curation.

The desire to have everything at our finger tips is introducing an additional entitlement to hear and be heard, and it poses a real challenge for us to overcome.

Another funny thing from the sony leak was people within sony talking about rebooting Spiderman for a 3rd time cause of how sucky Amazing Spiderman 2 did in the box office. It's pretty hilarious and some ideas thrown around was making Peter an adult in this one which is funny in it's own right cause they were complaining how old spiderman was just a few years ago during the original trilogy.

I found it interesting that they considered working on Spider-Man with Marvel.

(Hey, while I think it's shady what the press is doing with the stolen docs, it's pretty much impossible to avoid the info once they report on it.)

I don't see much of a difference between a hacker leaking this information and a source within Sony doing the same. None of this serves the public interest but it is interesting to the general public which is why it is getting so much coverage. It's juicy gossip and people have loved that kind of stuff going back to the trade columns of the 1930's and 40's. In a sense, this is a movie studio airing its dirty laundry in public, which seems to be in culturally acceptable these days, at least on a personal level. Ninety percent of this gossip will be forgotten in six months anyway, so apart from being momentarily embarrassing, I don't find any of the stories to be a big deal.

The more concerning aspect of all of this is how seemingly easy Sony Pictures was hacked. Between this, the naked celeb photos and the NSA spying on everyone everywhere, personal privacy is dead.

A different view would be hacking has been going on for awhile. Sony has been hacked very publicly a few times, and they probably at least a PlayStation have fairly decent security.

But just imagine how much small and medium sized companies get hacked. I mean companies that make very technical items with very lucrative ideas. And, this companies might not have the best IT staff because they are small. so they have some security....but "where there is a will there is a way."

Corporate espionage comes up as a news items from time to time for the public, and they say it is bad, but the reality must be BRUTAL. If Sony is getting hacked, then GE and Boeing must be getting hacked, getting infiltrated by people just there to steal stuff, and their employees being contacted to sell secrets. But, those big companies often sub contact parts out to smaller companies and those places must get hammered by industrial espionage hackers.

To be honest, I don't really care about my CC being hacked from Sony or Microsoft because there are a lot if rules to protect me from purchases made from my stolen cards. What is fucking scarier to think about is how much hacking happens at a much higher level.

True that. I can't even imagine the amount of bullshit that happens to small-to-medium sized businesses, both between themselves and bigger companies trying to peek in. It's all sorts of crazy.

This is actually an interesting point. People have always loved gossip, but it seems that the gossip becomes more personal and petty with every passing year. We're probably just a couple years from people going nuts over pics and videos of celebs taking a shit.

This of course goes hand-in-hand with the fucking desperation 24-hour news channels have to fill time.

Seriously, just stick to local news. At least it's more local idiocy...