"A very recent dispatch by the channel dealt with women who allegedly operate as sex workers in south Lebanon. The women were filmed secretly by the side of the road and their faces made clearly visible. Again, no attempt was made to hide their identities, in spite of the great personal hazard being recognized on national television could pose to each of these women.
Viewed together, the programs form a body of evidence in contradiction to MTV’s proclaimed crusade in support of the viewer’s - and, by extension, the public’s - right to know. By voyeuristically invading the privacy of vulnerable individuals, the channel seems to believe it has the right to target and endanger people who do not conform to its own peculiar interpretation of a moral and pious Lebanon.
Sharif Nashashibi, founder of London-based media watchdog Arab Media Watch, criticized MTV for potentially endangering individuals featured in its reports.
“They are putting these people's lives at risk,” he told Al-Akhbar. “These are serious accusations that are not corroborated in the video[s].”
Viewers have protested in the past over how MTV's editorial guidelines apparently do not account for the well being and privacy of individuals featured in its reports. But the Hamra Cinema piece has sapped the patience of some groups exasperated by the channel's journalese.
“They treated the men there as if they are criminals but MTV is in no way qualified to judge,” said Hasan, founder of Raynbow, a Lebanese LBGT monitoring group.
Several NGOs supporting equal rights have been so outraged by MTV's latest dispatch that they have sought legal advice over its broadcast. They insist their grievance is on grounds of media ethics and the right to privacy – rather than the issue of sexual profiling the channel made its report about.
Nayla Geagea, a lawyer who has been contacted by rights organizations, says that any case brought against MTV could not be done in the context of the alleged homosexuality featured in the Hamra Cinema report." (thanks Raed)
