Visuals & Situational Context; Ethical Publishing Principles

Berita Harian was required to apology to public on the incident of publishing comic of an Ultraman, Japanese famous anime, running away from Tsunami during the tragic earthquake and tsunami that happened in Japan recently. After the comic has been published, many critics on the image that was being distasteful and insensitive have appeared on Facebook and Twitter. Some reacted with anger to call for boycott the newspaper. The paper posted apologize message expressed that they sympathized and shared the sorrow of Japanese through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, the paper and their website said that they have 'no intension to of poking fun' on the disaster that hit Japan.

Malaysian newspaper Berita Harian printed a cartoon depicting Japanese cartoon Ultraman outrun from Tsunami on March,13, 2011.  (Source:  Business Insider)

On the other hand, I have found a blog article-Freedom to expression, hello? that respond to this case stated the issues of integrity of the press that related to the disaster in Japan and freedom of speech in Malaysia. The papers must show their respect which can reflect their integrity to people that are suffering in calamity.  As a nation Malay language newspaper, the press must have issue of moral sensitivity towards the incident. According to Blackwell Publishing, sensitivity must be exercised when images that have cultural significance or cause offence are being published.

There are similar cases from Singapore's MediaCorp and The Nation of Thailand that occurred after the incident in Japan happened has found in All Voices. They have apologized to the publics of being insensitivity regarding the issues. The medias should avoid in publishing cartoons that could offend the readers or viewers, the victims and the nations as the information can be delivered globally and raise some serious issues.

Cartoon image that published by The Nation of Thailand, which found to be insensitive towards the calamity of Japan. (Source: allvoices.com)

In this environment with advance technology, publications can be spread as fast as per seconds. The information can be delivered to the readers or viewers from different medias such as internet, radios, TVs etc around the world. Therefore, publishers need to take ethical publishing principle into consideration before publish.