So is everyone familiar with this Defede/Teele controversy playing out in Miami?
In a nutshell: Former Miami Commissioner Arthur Teele blew his brains out in the lobby of the Miami Herald last month. Shortly before he did, he had an anguished phone conversation with Herald columnist Jim Defede. Defede recorded the phone call without Teele’s knowledge or consent and told his bosses. Executive Editor Tom Fiedler fired Defede that evening.
A lot of journalists are outraged, rumors are flying, and Herald columnists are still writing about it.
Here’s my question. In Florida it is illegal to tape a phone call without both parties’ consent. In a number of other states, it isn’t. Fiedler claims to be motivated not by the law, though, but ethics:
[F]undamentally, this isn’t a question of the law. It’s a question of how Herald journalists, and particularly our most visible and most experienced, are expected to operate.
When it comes to maintaining our integrity, we must be absolutists. There can be no parsing of ethics. We cannot be a little bit unethical. …
[E]xtraordinary cases aside, the people with whom we deal cannot think that they can trust us some of the time, even most of the time. They have to know that they can trust us all the time, in every encounter.
When we tell them a conversation is off the record, it will remain so. And when we don’t tell them that their words are being recorded, they can know that they aren’t.
Of course I agree with what Fiedler says about off-the-record conversations. But why is it unethical to tape someone without their permission? Particularly when they know they’re talking to a journalist, and know their words are on the record? We take people’s picture all the time without their permission, sometimes without their knowledge. Why are words so different?
Suppose, hypothetically, that I’m interviewing a grieving mom about her dead son, killed in Iraq. She’s speaking through tears, and I’m worried I might miss something she says. Ethically, do I need to interrupt her and ask permission to start my tape recorder? We’re talking about a situation where a) she knows she’s talking to a journalist for the purposes of a story and b) where I’ll tape over the recording after I’ve reviewed it, and won’t use it for other purposes.
I’m curious what people think on this. (It’s not a far-fetched scenario; I was in this situation last week reporting on this story. I just took notes by hand and did the best I could, although I didn’t catch everything she said).
In Sports, they record coaches and player all the time to catch their comments. I’ve never heard a reporter ask a coach or player for permission to record him/her.
If the recording is the equivalent (better indeed) than hand written notes what’s the fuss. So long as it is treated the same way as notes. Having taken notes for interviews I can safely argue that a recording is far better at capturing the reality of speech than my note taking ever will be.
Sirs:
You state: “In Florida it is illegal to tape a phone call without both parties’ consent. In a number of other states, it isn’t.” My questions: What about in the states of Arizona and Nevada? Which is the determining state, the state where the person asking the questions resides or the state where the person answering the questions resides? In any event, shouldn’t a journalist “disclose” he is taping a telephone interview, and request permission before doing so? Sports writers in a locker room, and journalists on the other end of a telephone line are quite different. Don’t you think? Please advise.
If a reporter has identified herself as a journalist working on a story, why do you think she has an ethical obligation to disclose that she is taping a phone call? There’s clearly no expectation of privacy in that situation.
I’m not a legal expert, but I think the “determining state” is the state where the taping is being done.