Blame Narratives and the News: An Ethical Analysis

AbstractKeywordsblame, ethics, journalistic standards, narrative, news practices"Heads Must Roll"1Do we live in a culture of blame? Some writers at The Economist magazine think so. In fact, a 2008 column in the magazine went so far as to claim that Western cultures have become "dominated and warped by blame."2 And when it came to assigning responsibility, The Economist called out news media directly for their role in fueling the fires. As a media ethicist interested in issues of journalism and society, I could not let a charge like this go unexplored.Certainly, the media confer public legitimacy and serve as the principal means of public expression.3 But beyond that, the media create the world we classify as "real." Jay Rosen borrowed from Nelson Goodman when he called journalism a "way of worldmaking."4 From this perspective, journalism does not only reflect the attitudes of its audiences, it constructs and shapes those attitudes. Therefore, the news media's approach to blame becomes important for the way an entire culture-in this case, U.S. culture-engages with it. Exploring and assessing this approach can have ramifications that extend beyond journalism practices to the ways in which people of democratic societies interact on all levels.Blame, according to The Economist column, has appeal: "It offers a simple narrative of how problems and tragedies arise, and a beguilingly simple solution: sack, punish, excoriate the culprits."5 Most philosophers who have written about blame claim that our system of morality depends on it; morality itself rises and falls on blame. And even a cursory review of the news reveals frequent instances of blame-placing or blame-seeking. However, is the kind of blame we see fostered by news media the "right" kind? Or is it, as The Economist claims, a vitriolic blame that is wrecking morale; inhibiting decision making; and providing a "false, childish hope" that complex problems can be easily solved?6 These are some of the questions I address in this monograph.Proceeding in three parts, the monograph investigates narratives of blame in U.S. journalism. The first part is a theoretical exploration aimed at developing a justifiable model of blame for the news media. It is largely normative/prescriptive. The second part is an empirical exploration of the top U.S. news stories from 2010. It is aimed at identifying and assessing narratives of blame that appear in the news and is largely descriptive. The final part returns to the normative, putting the model of blame developed in part I up against the narratives of blame from part II. It then makes an ethical assessment of news media practices as they relate to blame and, based on that assessment, further refines the normative model to more usefully guide future practices.Part IA Model of Blame for JournalismJournalism scholars have largely ignored the concept of blame in the news, and none have approached it from an ethics perspective. Part I, therefore, constructs a normative/ prescriptive model of blame for journalism using two literatures: (1) the philosophy of blame and (2) normative theories of the media. My intent is to propose a justifiable model of blame that integrates the literature from moral philosophy, which considers general questions of how we ought to live, with the literature from journalism, which considers the specific roles and obligations of a profession that has a central role in carrying on the conversations of our day.7 Philosophy's engagement with questions of blame is incomplete without an exploration of blameworthiness. The section that focuses on philosophy, therefore, considers both blame and blameworthiness, together with a brief discussion of the philosophical framework that makes the notions of blame and blameworthiness relevant.The Context for BlameBefore moving to a discussion of blame and its correlative notion, blameworthiness, it is important to first pose the "so what" question: Why should we care about blame? …