A Study of Tmz Media Practices Using Moral Theories and Concepts

The topic of my case study revolves around the issue of invasion of privacy. While invasion of privacy is something that looked down upon regardless of the context, there are many more issues that arise when the privacy invasion is followed by large-scale exposition. The topic of my case study will involve more than just an individual spreading another person’s private information to their friends, it will examine the ethics of media outlets exposing private information.

The media outlet that will be examined is TMZ. In terms of pop-culture media outlets, TMZ is arguably the biggest in the world. For many years they have been infamous for being the first outlet to break shocking news stories, and more importantly, the first outlet to obtain highly sensitive or private information about celebrities or public figures. Medical charts, divorce papers, court proceedings, and bank statements are just a few examples of the types of documents that TMZ is able to obtain and publish on their website to accompany a breaking news article. With the exposition of documents that contain information that is not only private by law, but could cause irreparable damage, the concept of media ethics comes into play. Some questions that need to be asked are: Is it ethical for TMZ to expose these documents? Were these documents obtained in an ethical manner? Should TMZ be responsible for the possible repercussions of the images?

Like stated above, while there are many different examples of times that TMZ has seemingly crossed into some questionable ethical waters, there is one specific instance that I would like to present as the main example. The situation revolves around the birth of Kanye West’s and Kim Kardashian’s daughter North West. In June of 2013, TMZ posted a leaked photo of North West’s birth certificate ("Kim Kardashian's Baby North West -- Holy Crap, I Don't Have a Middle Name! (BIRTH CERTIFICATE)."). The problem was that West and Kardashian had not announced to the public where Kardashian was giving birth, what her daughter’s name would be, and that she even close to giving birth at all. TMZ was the first outlet to receive and post this leaked photo, and they even stated so in the article ("Kim Kardashian's Baby North West -- Holy Crap, I Don't Have a Middle Name! (BIRTH CERTIFICATE)"). While the ethical question here certainly involves invasion of privacy, it also involves the possible safety of a minor given the fact that the location of West’s and Kardashian’s daughter was not intended to go public.

First, let’s take a look at what TMZ’s policy on images containing private information. In their privacy policy, TMZ states in it’s “How We Use The Information” section that they will post images that contain personally identifiable information including legal and medical documents (“Privacy Policy). Additionally, the policy states that this holds to any information you wish to submit to TMZ about a person or situation. For example, if you have insider information and choose to submit it to TMZ for potential news material, they may include your name as the source. While that would require an entirely separate case study on the ethics around maintaining anonymity, let’s stay focused on whether or not it was ethically just for TMZ to post the birth certificate.

Next in our ethical examination, it should be noted that TMZ never justifies why or why they choose not to post certain images or information. Seeing as the privacy policy is so open, it would appear that as a company they don’t truly have any boundaries regarding this type of information. TMZ chose not to acknowledge the controversy around the posting of the birth certificate, and only quietly removed some of the more controversial information in the post in order to, one would assume, avoid any potential legal ramifications. To provide further support that this is a route TMZ has taken before, I would like to compare this situation to a past situation where TMZ was sued for posting an allegedly “sexualized” video of a “Toddlers and Tiaras” star ("TMZ Pulls Down 'Toddlers and Tiaras' Child Star Video”). TMZ was sued for posting this video on their site, and instead of posting a statement regarding the situation, they just removed certain content from the article and settled outside of court ("TMZ Pulls Down 'Toddlers and Tiaras' Child Star Video”). With all of this in mind, it is still very evident that TMZ does not operate under any strict media ethics guidelines and is more concerned about the success of their articles. Much like the case of the “Toddlers and Tiaras” video, history shows us that exposure of private material, like medical documents, often leads to lawsuit by the victim. In the case of Kardashian, it would not had been surprising if she chose to take legal action.

Another element of the ethical examination that should be addressed is whether or not other news outlets post the same photos as TMZ. It would appear that other news outlets, specifically for pop-culture news, choose not to take the same chances that TMZ does. Interestingly enough, many other news outlets will remove themselves from the article all together and simply link viewers to the original TMZ article. For example, the New York Times will often post articles giving viewers just some very general, and noninvasive, information about the story. An example of this would be the case of TMZ being the first to post a leaked audio recording, and the New York Times chose not to include that in their version of the article (“Celebrity Gossip Website Extends Its Reach With Scoops on Stars From a Different Field”). Again, it is important to note that the New York Times made it very clear that this was a TMZ story. The reason this is important is because it shows that there is a definite ethical policy difference between the two news outlets.

The last element to consider before we use ethical theory to decide whether or not TMZ acted ethically in the posting of the birth certificate is the nature of TMZ’s sources. Shortly after TMZ posted the leaked birth certificate, they posted another article revealing that Kardashian’s medical records were improperly accessed at the hospital by one or several hospital employees (“Kim Kardashian -- I Was a Victim of Hospital Snooping”). The article goes on to say that the leaked information regarding the entire West and Kardashian situation was leaked to the media by these employees, and the employees in question were subsequently fired. Seeing as TMZ was the first outlet to post the birth certificate image, it would seem that TMZ engages with sources that clearly do not abide by any strict ethical standards. Tying this together, it would seem that not only does TMZ have loose ethical guidelines when it comes to posting private information, but they also have loose ethical guidelines in terms of how they obtain information. The combination of these two provides strong evidence of where TMZ stands ethically as well as the integrity of the organization.

Let’s apply the ethical theories about privacy in this case to determine whether or not TMZ acted ethically in this case (“Privacy”). Kant would ask whether or not there is a developed categorical imperative. In this case, is there a greater societal need in terms of the information on the birth certificate? In other words, is this information regarding the birth of North West need-to-know information? I would have to argue it is not. Another ethical theorist. Rawls, would ask how TMZ staff members would feel if it was their leaked hospital information. I would like to believe that TMZ staff members would not want the birth certificate of their child leaked to the media if their location was being kept a secret for safety reasons.Habermas, another theorist, would suggest that TMZ consult with West and Kardashian before publishing the birth certificate image. Regardless of how it was obtained, TMZ did not consult with the ‘victims’ before posting the sensitive information.

The most applicable theory, and one that I would like to base my justified decision on, is one by a theorist named Mill. He argues that releasing private information is justified if we can find some greater societal good. In this case, releasing the information does not provide any greater good for society in terms of need-to-know information. While the theory would suggest that one could argue that it provides a greater good simply by just providing information, I believe that need-to-know information trumps want-to-know information in terms of societal need.

To summarize the case study and provide justification, let’s review: Is it ethical for TMZ to expose these documents? Were these documents obtained in an ethical manner? Should TMZ be responsible for the possible repercussions of the images? First, the documents were not obtained in an ethical way seeing as it was a matter of a hospital privacy breach. Next, TMZ would have been responsible for any repercussions following the posting of the information because the information was want-to-know not need-to-know information. Seeing as exposition of the documents raised a possible safety concern, I believe that, ethically, TMZ would be responsible. Additionally, they did not ask the parties whether or not they wanted the image to be posted. Lastly, and most importantly, it was unethical to post these documents because there was clearly an invasion of privacy with no evidence that it was for the greater good of society -- and in all actuality -- caused greater risk for damage and harm than any potential need-to-know information.