Google Street car in Edmonton (via iNews880.com)

As we all slowly crushed under the weight of 6 billion articles about the coming Swine Flumaggedon, let’s all take some time to stop and thank the Ottawa Citizen for forging their own path.

See, while most media organizations are losing their heads over the swine flu, Citizen’s Robert Sibley has latched on to a more grave threat: a car with a CAMERA on it (c/o mathewi)

“We may once have thought we were under God’s surveillance. Now Google watches over us.”

Sibley’s piece asks whether the expansion of Google’s Street View is an invasion of privacy, a question that has been asked again and again the world over. What kind of expectation of privacy (root word: private) does one have in a public place? That’s the whole definition of the word public: it pretty much means “not private.”

One of the concerns, according to Sibley, is that Google is capturing things ”most would prefer be kept from public view…”

“When Street View debuted in the United States in 2007, bloggers posted pictures of people being arrested, urinating in public and sunbathing in their bikinis.

Wired magazine found images of police attending a fatality, a possible drug deal and a man climbing into an apartment (a possible burglary?)…”

Here’s a pretty surefire way of making sure thing you don’t want in “public view” showing up on Google Maps – don’t do these things in view of the public.

Also, kudos for the concern over Street View taking pictures of fatality investigations, arrests and dudes climbing on the outsides of buildings. These are, of course, not the type of things that the Ottawa Citizen might report on and take pictures of at the scene, right? (I even hear some newspaper websites are putting such photos on the Internet. That’s categorically different than what Google is doing…probably…somehow.)

I’m not saying that I’d be ecstatic to be shown on Street View doing something embarrassing. There’s a way I avoid it – by keeping my most embarrassing activities confined to the privacy of my home as much as I can.

Until Google starts snaking a camera under your front door and snaps some pictures, columnists should probably keep the “invasion of privacy” talk down to a minimum.

I mean, don’t we have more important things to blow way out of proportion?

But, in essence, the job of the journalist is to record and relay an event to his or her readers/listeners/ viewers. That’s what we strive to do – immerse our audience in the experience and give them an accurate account of what is going on in the world around them. It does not matter if these events take place in university laboratory, on a foreign battlefield, or on a city street just a few blocks away.

But can we do it too well?

Some listeners of National Public Radio’s Morning Show have argued so. On April 7th, the public broadcaster reported on the story of a young Pakistani girl being flogged by the Taliban. The public punishment was handed out to the girl because she committed the grave sin of not being in the presence of her husband while out.

What elevated this story from your all-too-common inhuman treatment of women under fanatical rule was the fact that the flogging was caught on video. And NPR used the audio of the woman’s tortured screams in their piece. (You can hear NPR’s piece here. Fair warning: it’s, not surprisingly, not pleasant to listen to.)

Commenters on NPR’s website weren’t exactly kind. They called the inclusion of the sound clip “cheap,” below the standards of NPR. They were accused of sensationalizing and told 7 AM is not the time to air “adult content.”

The question is: exactly what time is appropriate for a public flogging? Surely not before noon, yes?

This isn’t the first time this kind of debate has been held. There’s no question that we’re getting more and more familiar with graphic images being displayed in the media. Videos of a airliner slamming into the World Trade Center. Bodies floating in the water-logged streets of New Orleans. Afghani civilians being rushed to hospital after bombs go off.

And every time, someone crows about how journalists sensationalize the news – that publishing such images is somehow disrespectful to the high ideals journalists are supposed to strive for.

But to sensationalize something is to puff it up, give it the illusion of importance far beyond what actually exists. That’s not what NPR is doing here: it’s not a disservice to their listeners. In fact, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. Of course the audio is heart-wrenching and disturbing; that’s because the story it comes from is the same.

I’m not arguing that for evening newscasts and front pages smeared with blood and brain matter. That would be inappropriate and vile. At the same time, it would be just as vile to descend into self-censorship in hopes of keeping our pages sterile and unsullied.
Gone are the days of stoic, emotionless newscasters with deep, unwavering voices. Journalists must always attempt to be accurate and fair, and not to chase ratings and readership with bold, sensational headlines. But at the same time, we should never feel the need to separate events from emotion. Sometimes, bad things happen. Horrific, tragic, terrible things. And we are do a disservice to the audience if we don’t try and convey those feelings in our reporting.

The point of news is to inform and capture the audience’s attention, not to comfort and sooth. An infuriating story should boil the blood. A tragic event should inspire a sick feeling of hollowness and ache.

A news story is not a headline and a collection of sentences. It is a real event, that happens to real people, and causes real impact.

Treating it as anything less is the true disservice.

Also: (Via NPR’s Ombud is going about this the right way. She’s defending the station’s use of the audio, as well as the way it was presented.