Minor Details

One of the most striking parts of Chapter 13 was the section on“Issues of Taste and Ethics.” It reminded me strongly of an argument we had to write during Journalism Ethics last year which discussed the morality of including children in stories:

The question of whether a minor should be interviewed in a story is a matter of taste, not of ethics. Provided the child holds no information that can genuinely harm a group or an individual, including him/herself, there are no ethical roadblocks worth considering. With the consent of a parent or guardian, there is no legal obstacle, so the issue becomes, “How does interviewing a child benefit the story?” (After all, at their roots, all journalists are storytellers.)
Thus, as a journalist one must determine what type of story is being told and subsequently, how important a role the minor had to play in it. If a minor is a unique participant in a story---unique, apart from his/her age, that is---then an interview is acceptable out of necessity. Just as a story about three bears cannot be properly told without the third bear’s perspective, a story about a case of child abuse cannot be properly told without the child’s perspective.
If, however, the minor is only an appendage---an afterthought meant to aggravate the audience’s tear ducts---then one should reconsider the interview’s importance. If the information can be obtained just as easily from an adult, then it should be.
The only exception to this rule is in the case of local community stories where harrowing ethical issues are a rarity. A county fair or a local concert, for instance, is an acceptable context in which to interview children (for obvious reasons.)
Ultimately, using children as tools for titillation should be avoided at all costs. Just as in fiction, useless characters only clutter up the story.