Background
The Commission on Journalistic Ethics received a complaint from Dana Okomaniuk against the article “Objectivity or Hype? Response to Dana Okomaniuk (February 3, 2023, written by Maryna Titova).
The applicant reported that the journalist asked her about the rape she experienced at the age of 17 and asked her to provide the rapist’s phone number — allegedly in order to hear his perspective.
After the applicant refused to provide this information, the journalist published an article on the StopCor website, which, in particular, contained a negative assessment of the woman’s actions. The journalist justified her actions by the need to represent two sides of the story.
In addition, according to the applicant, the journalist published personal information about the author of the complaint on social media.
Dana Okomaniuk believes that such actions violated journalistic ethics.
Preliminary analysis of the article indicated that the text included possible violations of privacy (paragraph 3 of the Ethics Code of the Ukrainian Journalist) and of the principle of separation of facts from judgments and assumptions (p. 9 of the Code).
The fact that Dana Okomaniuk published this story on her social network account does not mean this information ceased to be private. It also does not mean automatic consent to publication of such information in the media.
The intention to take commentary from the “opposite party,” i.e., from the rapist himself, indicates that the author misunderstands the concept of balance. This would create an idea that the opinions of the survivor and the rapist are equally valuable and lead to the use of the media platform as a means of justifying violence.
Mediation process
The Commission on Journalistic Ethics offered the editorial office to provide a comment on the issues indicated in the complaint.
In its initial response, the team of StopCor expressed readiness to consider the complaint through the mediation of the Commission on Journalistic Ethics and asked to consider the complaint in the presence of the author of the material, Maryna Titova, so that she would have the opportunity to express her position.
The letter also contained information about the journalist’s correspondence with the survivor: as noted in the response, the author of the publication apologized to the survivor and complained about the woman’s negative remarks in the messenger and on social media. To confirm this, the editorial team sent screenshots of their correspondence and asked to take them into account while considering the complaint.
In response to the editor’s letter, the Commission welcomed the newsroom’s readiness to admit mistakes and fix them. However, the Commission on Journalistic Ethics considers only journalistic materials published in the media or on digital platforms.
The activity of the Commission on Journalistic Ethics does not entail analyzing personal correspondence of journalists with individuals featured in their materials, considering conflicts between journalists and social media users, and additional verification of any facts unless the data to be verified is contained in the journalistic publication itself.
The Commission also fails to see public interest in the publication of the full name of the survivor or her rapist, since it is violence overall, not this particular case, that is of public interest. Instead, the author of the article focused on the person of the survivor, and not on the problem of violence.
Since the Commission considers complaints and makes decisions through correspondence among all members, which is in line with the Regulation on the Commission on Journalistic Ethics and the rules of procedure for dealing with complaints, the Commission offered StopCor journalist Maryna Titova to file a written comment.
In a detailed response to the Commission, the author of the material noted that the contested publication appeared in the “Blogs” section under the “Viewpoint” heading and was an emotional response to Dana Okomaniuk’s statement about the journalist. Since the title of the author — managing editor — was used as a credential, the entire material was perceived as the editorial office’s position.
Mediation outcome
After studying the reasoning of the Commission on Journalistic Ethics, the author of the material recognized her mistake, expressed readiness to remove the publication and organize a training for the editorial team about communicating with violence survivors.
The Commission on Journalistic Ethics has provided advice on possible editorial policy for removing or amending existing materials:
- Indicate that the material has been removed or corrected;
- Explain the reasons for taking this action;
- Apologize to the readers;
- Indicate what measures will be taken by the editorial team in the future to avoid similar mistakes.
The page where the disputed material was posted is now marked “removed” and an explanation of the reasons is provided: “After analyzing the information, we have decided to remove this publication from our website as it does not meet our standards of development and editorial processing of materials.”
The team of the media outlet promised to “draw conclusions and improve processes” and provided an address for feedback.
The Commission on Journalistic Ethics welcomes a productive review of another complaint through mediation.