The ongoing furore over whether or not a mosque should be allowed to be built near Ground Zero in Manhattan has brought many issues to light and has given people considerable food for thought.

If you want to read more about the mosque, Charlie Brooker has written a characteristically satirical take in the Guardian and the BBC has reported on it extensively (as has pretty much every news site on the internet). But while the media is legally obliged to be balanced in its reporting, should it have a moral obligation too, particularly given the sensitivity in this case? While a lot of the media coverage has been even-handed and fair, the right-leaning press must surely take at least some responsibility for the uproar.

The vast majority of people would agree that anyone with that level of influence over a group of people should act with restraint and have some kind of ethical obligation not to directly mislead the public. But is this moral necessity trumped by the need for a free press, and the commercial necessity to sell content? In the case of the mosque, the very real fear is that media slant will whip up prejudice and misinformed word-of-mouth that is socially damaging. Or even puts lives at risk.

To quote a well known superhero’s uncle “with great power comes great responsibility”. I think most people would agree with this as a general rule. The media should not be required to be squarely balanced in all reporting, as that would be overkill and make the media landscape a much duller place. But I do believe that there has to be some kind of ethical onus on fairness – regardless of legal and commercial requirements.

I have a couple of suggestions for simple ways for the media to improve balance:

-          Don’t report opinion as fact – at least try to back up your argument! Yes journalists are not ‘supposed’ to do this, but it is increasingly common as information from social media gets picked up by the conventional press

-          Avoid straw man arguments – all too common, but can be a very persuasive fallacy