Read what 8 people said. Do they think that these stories and photos should

Unit 9

MEDIA ETHICS

AND RELATIONSHIPS

READING

Exercise 1. A radio phone-in programme is dicussing the following questions:

– Reporting of celebrity scandals in the press: should it be banned?

– Are scandals in the private lives of famous people any of our business?

Read what 8 people said. Do they think that these stories and photos should

(A) be allowed, or (B) be banned?

Speaker A or B?

Linda

Bob

Nick

Harry

Tom

Joe

Emily

Rachel

Linda: I don’t think that it’s got anything to do with us, it’s none of our business. If people want to do what they want, I don’t care who they are, they should be allowed to. I think we can do without this kind of thing in the papers.

Bob: I think that the problem is that half of the staff they print is just complete rubbish. They’ll print anything to make a bit of money, and I think that half the time they just make it up. I don’t think they should be allowed to print a load of lies.

Nick: A lot of people, especially young people, look up to pop stars and film stars and people like that, so my feeling is that it’s important we know what they’re up to. These people are role models for our children, so it’s right if we know what they are really like.

Harry: I really like finding out about who’s going out with who, who’s getting married and that kind of thing. I get “Hello” every week and it gives you all the latest news and I really look forward to it. What’s wrong with that?

Tom: I can’t see how it is in the public’s interest to know about the private life of a Hollywood film star or some princess or other. It may be that these people have immoral lives but it’s even more immoral to write and read about it. I don’t go along with this kind of thing at all.

Joe: If people want to read information like this, then the newspapers will print it. I don’t think you can blame the newspapers. If people gave up buying these papers, then you wouldn’t get all these shock-horror stories. It’s as simple as that.

Emily: I think it’s really important that the press has complete freedom. After all, if you start saying “No, you can’t print this, you can’t print that”, it won’t be long before our whole democratic society breaks down. I don’t want politicians deciding what I can read.

Rachel: Well, these film stars say they’re not happy about it but they keep on giving interviews all the time, so I can’t see how they can complain if sometimes the papers print stories about them that are maybe a bit embarrassing. That’s just too bad for them!