Media should strike a balance between the public good and privacy of patient
What you need to know:
- I was particularly concerned about the publication of Ms Nancy Wanjiku’s picture on the front page of the Daily Nation two days in a row, on March 19 and 20. A caption described her image as “the face of the cancer treatment crisis in Kenya”.
- Privacy — the right to not be subjected to unnecessary public scrutiny — is fundamental to the notion of human dignity. Our right to privacy gives us the ability to control what others know about us. It enables us to live with dignity.
- With regard to pictures, the policy offers this guideline: “Is it invasive of anyone’s privacy? If this is the case, a further question should then be asked as to whether the use of any such photo is nonetheless justified by a clear and indisputable public interest in doing so.”
A hawker at the Nairobi Country Bus Station asked me to congratulate the Nation Media Group team that last week put together a series of stories on the plight of cancer patients at the Kenyatta National Hospital.
“Tell the team kudos for highlighting the plight of the patients for three consecutive days, with two front-page headlines.”
Mr Waithaka is a discerning newspaper reader. The cancer patients exposé was commendable enterprising reporting on the part of the Daily Nation. The report was heartbreaking.
It was about ordinary Kenyans who rely on a government hospital for cancer treatment because they cannot afford the high fees for radiotherapy in private hospitals. The two machines at the KNH had broken down and their treatment was abruptly stopped.
Many people who read the sad story wrote, offering to contribute money for the poor patients. Others blamed the short-sightedness of the government in having only two machines in the entire public health system in a country where an estimated 40,000 new cancer cases are reported and 27,000 people die of cancer every year.
The Nation report stirred many hearts and pricked the nation’s conscience. One of the two machines that had broken down was hurriedly repaired and some of the patients were farmed out to private hospitals. We had earlier been told that the machines could not be repaired before April.
It was a story well told, with emotional overtones. The only thing I was not sure about was whether the Nation team took care of all the related ethical issues.
FACE OF CANCER
I was particularly concerned about the publication of Ms Nancy Wanjiku’s picture on the front page of the Daily Nation two days in a row, on March 19 and 20. A caption described her image as “the face of the cancer treatment crisis in Kenya”.
To me, her image looked like the face of cancer itself.
The Nation used four pictures on the front page — of three women and one man. The descriptions of their ailments were graphic.
For example, the opening paragraph of one of the stories said: “Ms Nancy Mary Wanjiku, 47, needs a miracle. She has cancer — aggressive ovarian cancer which has spread to her stomach and uterus — and desperately needs treatment.”
The Nation should have balanced the need to humanise the story with the private rights of Ms Wanjiku.
Privacy — the right to not be subjected to unnecessary public scrutiny — is fundamental to the notion of human dignity. Our right to privacy gives us the ability to control what others know about us. It enables us to live with dignity.
Privacy rights, however, are not a well-developed concept in our society.
However, the NMG editorial policy is clear. “The public’s right to know often needs to be weighed vis-à-vis the privacy rights of people in the news,” it states.
Intrusion into an individual’s private life without the person’s consent is generally not acceptable “unless public interest is indisputably involved”.
Even then, public interest “must itself be legitimate and not merely based upon prurient or morbid curiosity”.
With regard to pictures, the policy offers this guideline: “Is it invasive of anyone’s privacy? If this is the case, a further question should then be asked as to whether the use of any such photo is nonetheless justified by a clear and indisputable public interest in doing so.”
Article 31 of the Constitution also says every person has the right to privacy, which includes the right not to have information about them unnecessarily revealed.
Did Ms Wanjiku expressly agree to have her picture taken and published so prominently? Did she make an informed choice? We know she is not as media-savvy as Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, who was diagnosed in July 2010 and went public with his prostate cancer, or Prof Wangari Maathai, who kept her ovarian cancer private to the day she died in September 2011.
If Ms Wanjiku was your mother, wife, sister, or daughter, would you have wanted her picture to appear in the Nation and on the internet?
Send your concerns or comments to [email protected]. You can also call or send text messages to mobile 0721989264 calls 3288000 or visit the Public Editor at Nation Centre in Nairobi.
