Ethical Publishing

Obama, the first African-American US president is on the cover of 'The New Yorker'. Is it common? Most of the people would say yes till they see the picture below:

Cover of The New Yorker: Obama the terrorist?
Soucre: The Insider, 2009

So, what do you think Mr President would react after looking at it? In the news report on July 14 2008, before Obama become the US president, he expressed his anger to the publisher issue the ironic caricature of him in Islamic dress while the US flag is burning.

The act had obviously cross the ethical publishing codes as most of the readers would feel it offensive after looking at it. According to Jean (1995, p.6), one of the general ethics category covers on "harassment and undermining of a person's position". She states that people would misinterpret about the meaning that the publisher trying to inform the public. As editor, it is their responsibility not to allow the image to be published as they should take the consideration of the society. The publisher should know what they going to publish would get the attention of the public.

In addition, Kress and van Leuween (2006, p.41) mention that the elements of layout attract readers' attention in different degree and will come out with variety of meaning making. In my opinion, I would feel that Obama would be on the side of terrorist as he is wearing the Islamic clothes with US flag burning right besides him. Even if anyone is not aware about the terrorism, his or her thought would be similar to me as everyone interpret the images themselves regardless of the races. Walsh (2006, p.24) share the same idea as she points out that language is not a barrier for one to understand.

In short, publisher should take note on what they are going to publish to the public. Several issues need to be thought of before the material shown to public. It is essential for the editor to practice ethic of technical communications in addressing issue to the public. This is to convey message to the public in the right form of media.

Reference List

Jean, HW 1995, Ethics in scientific and technical communication, in Stevens M, the Exchange, Vol.14, No.2, June 2007

Kress, G., van Leeuwen, T. 2006, Reading images Chapter 1: The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication, 2nd edn, Reading Images: The grammar of visual design, Routledge, London

Obama campaign outraged by New Yorker cover, AFP, 14 July 2008

Walsh, M 2006, 'Textual Shifts: Examining The Reading Process With Print, Visual and Multimodal Text', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, p. 24-37