Public Apology by Berita Harian Over Tsunami Cartoon

Publishing of articles, especially in regards to global issues, demands writers to practice ethics. Readers of articles can be influenced by what they read and understand, therefore articles must display proof practiced ethics to avoid misunderstanding. For further understanding, analysis on a newspaper article will help us.

On March 14^th 2011, an article was published online titled: “Berita Harian issues public apology over tsunami cartoon.” Japan faced a major earthquake on the 11^th of March causing a massive tsunami to hit its shores. Berita Harian published a cartoon created by Mohd Zohri Sukimi, a.k.a Zoy, which showed the popular Japanese icon Ultraman running away from a huge oncoming wave. This publication caused a disturbance on social networking sites due to its insensitive and offensive characteristic, leading both politicians and the public to criticise it. Due to the criticisms, an apology needed to be made though it was not the daily’s intention to be insensitive.

Shriver (1997) indicates that the decisions document designers make about the relationships between prose and graphics can have a major impact on the clarity of the message and how engaging the message is. Reep (2006) also agrees stressing that graphic aids in isolating the main topics and appeal particularly to general and non-expert readers. In line with this, the cartoon was very clear on the message and, had it been published at another time, it would have been quite funny and well done. However, due to the time it was published, the cartoon was very insensitive and was not well thought off in terms of ethics.

It is clear that the editor was not thorough in his practice of ethics. Morton (2009) highlights two specific duties and responsibilities of editors and publishers: peer review and responsible publication practice. He goes on to say that peer review is necessary to declare conflicts of interest and provide objective, unbiased reviews while the editors need to ensure accuracy and encourage academic discourse and debate. With the publication of the cartoon, it is clear to see that these two duties were lacking and this caused them some damage to the name of their newspaper. Therefore, an apology was necessary and appropriate towards the Japanese citizens.

In conclusion, ethics is important to be practiced before any publication is made in order to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding as it can lead to other unwanted issues.

Reference:

Morton, NS 2009, ‘Publication Ethics,’ Pediatric Anesthesia, vol.19, no.10, pp. 1011-1013, viewed on 10 June 2011,

<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/doi/10.1111/j.1460-9592.2009.03086.x/pdf>

Schriver, KA 1997, Chp 6: The interplay of words and pictures, Dynamics in document design:creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Publishing, New York

Reep, Diana C. 2006, Chp 4: Principles of Document Design, Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson Edu, Inc., New York