Here is a good example of how framing is critical in analyzing the news. When various conservative blogs and commentators started complaining that the AP’s report on the Obamas’ oldest daughter spending spring break in Mexico was disappearing from news media websites across the net, I saw it as a non-story from an ethics perspective, and certainly not, as was being suggested, an example of White House censorship of legitimate news. If I was President Obama and my young teenage daughter was in Mexico, I’d ask the media to leave her alone too.
I thought other criticism of the President in this incident was unfair as well. Some critics suggested that it was irresponsible of the First Couple to allow their daughter to travel anywhere in a nation where the State Department had issued an advisory that it was not safe to travel. The Obamas are bad parents now? I assume that they are certain that their daughter will be safe, and have taken appropriate measures to ensure that. This is not within the realm of legitimate topics for political sniping.
Thus I wasn’t going to write about this, just as I decide not to write about a wide assortment of ethics-related events and topics that I consider and discard every day. By looking at it as an issue of government and leadership ethics, however, I missed the real story, which involves journalistic integrity and courage. The Obamas certainly had a right to ask that Malia’s spring break travels be unreported, but a responsible and fair U.S. news media would have told them, politely, no.
The reason for this is not, as many have suggested, that Obama’s use of his girls, especially recently, as political props make them fair game for obtrusive coverage. I don’t believe that. Presidential children have no control over what their parents do to and with them: when they are being used in ads or referred to in political speeches, the children are being thrust into the spot-light, but they should still not be treated as typical public figures or celebrities by the media. They shouldn’t have to battle paparazzi, their schooling and recreation should be off-limits, and they should be permitted as much privacy as possible.
But Malia is traveling in a dangerous country with a Secret Service contingent of 25 agents. That’s legitimate news. And as legitimate news, the news media shouldn’t kill coverage just because the White House asks them to. If it will accommodate the President for this story, how does the public know that the media won’t bury other stories, those with more political significance, when the President whistles?
Trustworthiness of the news media’s objectivity and integrity is harmed by the decision, both now and for the future. Some have pointed out that the some of the same journalists were not so accommodating and sensitive when it came to the privacy of the Bush twins, and that is true, but we already knew that the media’s partisan bias problem is beyond hope. One would think, however, that preserving the public’s faith that the news media still has the integrity and courage to report stories when political leaders would like to have them ignored would be a high priority, even for an ethically-muddled profession like American journalism.
Guess not.
Ethics Alarms 
First, there’s the question of how much it cost the taxpayers to send a president’s barely-teenaged scion on a foreign vacation with a small platoon of bodyguards and attendants. Second is the issue of parental competance in sending a child to a country which her own father has decreed as dangerous for American tourists… and demonstrably is. Third, of course, is the media’s complicity in making it non-news for the sake of their “Chosen One’s” re-election chances.
The costs of Obama family vacations is a legitimate issue, particularly when austerity needs to be the order of the day.
I was going to say “Oh, come on, Jack!” but then read Steven’s comment. I mean, where are us “staycationers” to be expected to pay for the poor, hard-working parents’ First Kiddos to get to visit on Spring Break next? Tunnels and rocket-launching pads in Gaza? Maybe some scenic, hilltop or coastal-overlook spa in Syria? I saw some article just the other day about “hidden places the world doesn’t know about” – such as Sri Lanka. Yeah, prime spots for a young person’s vacation – and for a “dirt nap.”
Exactly. It raises legitimate issues relating to the nation, and is thus news, and something “the people have a right to know.”
I actually am relatively less demanding of a right to know where my President’s children are vacationing, than I am demanding of my President to avoid every appearance of corruption.
With the President’s daughter visiting Mexico (and assuming – HOPING – she remains safe there, and returns safely), I cannot help but become suspicious that the highest offices in my country’s government are actually in cahoots with the most violent elements in the territory next door – else, why would (how could) such high officials be so trusting of their own children’s safety as to let one of them sojourn in such a dangerous land?
When I heard of that Mexican foray, a number of incidents popped into my head. 22 American tourists robbed at gunpoint near Cancun. A couple boating on Lake Amistad; pursued by pirates and the husband shot dead. Tourists in national parks on the Mexican border needing armed escorts. And the state of Oaxaca itself a center for the drug trade. What consciencious parent- much less the POTUS- would go there himself… much less allowing his daughter to go there? And for what purpose?
Yeah, I’ve got young adult kids with adventurousness and bravado (which cannot conceal an appreciable amount of hubris typical for kids like that), so I can’t influence very strongly where they choose to wander anymore, and what adventures they choose. (I’ll stick to rollercoasters and zip-lining – or maybe, if I want to get truly crazy, a parasail tow.)
So this Obama kid’s trip to Mexico gets me to obsessing. I start thinking and imagining intensely: What would I do if I was the POTUS Dad? Surely, by now, the President must realize that sending a bunch of Secret Service agents provides human shields, at best. “Llanqui” plainclothes cop-types in Mexico cannot guarantee a VIP’s safety – not any more effectively than temporary Christmas help can guarantee that a retail store keeps its shelves stocked and in order. His best bet for keeping his daughter safe in a place like that is to rely on the most experienced, security-aware and security-capable, locals. And WHO would THOSE persons be??
Probably bought-off cartel “enforcers”! But that still raises the question of “why”? Why Oaxaca in particular? The natural inclination would be to suspect some political motive. But with one’s own young daughter? That would seem to be too much… even for Obama. So again, why? It would be the rough equivalent of Netanyahu sending a kid of his to Syria.
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