Airtime, column inches and 15-minutes of fame make strange bedfellows. In Israel, in February, a news anchor of Israeli Broadcasting Authority introduced video footage of a man accused of rape and sodomy. But there was something terribly wrong about the clip. The video tape had been made by a rapist himself, documenting his acts of violence against a woman begging and moaning for mercy.

In the same month, an alternative newspaper in the US published an exclusive interview its reporter had obtained with a serial arsonist. Again, there was a twist. The man who claimed responsibility for torching luxury homes in the mountains, was not only craving publicity, but was teased into it. In response to his initial letter to the journalist offering an exclusive interview, the newspaper printed a cryptic sentence on its front page that only the arsonist would recognize, with a phone number. He called. They met him. He obliged in more ways than one. On the night before his interview, he burnt down a house just to prove he was who he said he was. One more person lost a house. The "Phoenix New Times" got its scoop.

As always, the media argument for running these stories is that it serves the public’s right to know, and to provide ‘insight’ into the mind of the criminal. I read the long feature on the serial arsonist, and to be fair, it does give us an insight into the crazy mind. But the real winner was the man with the matches who got the oxygen for his campaign. This case appears to resemble the terrible Unabomber case in 1995. Then, a man who sent deadly parcel bombs to people, asked for his ‘manifesto’ to be published in the "New York Times" and "The Washington Post". They did, and it did lead to his capture.

Journalism is coming under the spotlight because of the news media suddenly finding itself at the dangerous intersection of ethics, politics, technology and entertainment.

Journalists have always been the 4^th Estate (that 4^th branch of government alongside the judiciary, the legislature and the executive) serving a noble role of providing the checks and balances for social governance. But are they unwitting accomplices of individuals and institutions that want their own agendas? It is almost a cliché to state that the news media has become such a ‘business’, that ethics has been forced to vacate the building.

Journalists under pressure from their editors, do seek the most unusual angles of a breaking story. Media organizations do want high circulation and top audience ratings. But it is not so simplistic as that.

Take the case of an embarrassing Web site which kicked off in January this year, called "The smoking Gun". It publishes letters from the media to Theodore Kaczynsky, the Unabomber, seeking exclusive interviews. Let’s get this straight. It is not a criminal seeking the media here. The roles have been reversed. In one letter from CNN, a legal analyst says "your case is particularly fascinating since you reject the findings and no one can dispute that you are an extremely smart man. Would you be willing to talk to me?" Wired Magazine, and CBS news among others also courted the man who is now serving a life sentence.

The latter asked for an interview for "a story for television that will accurately report on your beliefs regarding the impact of technology, the appropriate remedies, and the movement you have inspired." Read those last five words again. Here is a news organization telling a convicted killer that what he has started is a terrific movement! The pursuit of information? Or is it entertainment.

On the flip side, the "Detroit Free Press" made a tough decision last year in running a disturbing story on its front page that appalled many readers. It was the day before the spectacular Olympics opening ceremony. The Firestone company was in the middle of a massive tyre recall. A seven-month old baby was missing. Which story would have made a greater headline? The newspaper published a picture of a medical examiner that found the victim, holding up the tiny body wrapped in a plastic bag. It was not sensation for the sake of circulation. (If the paper really wanted to run with the national mood, the Firestone story would have been it.) The story brought home the horror of the act, even though it made the journalists’ stomach’s turn.

Next, consider the case of the man many people in Oklahoma want to see die. Timothy Mcveigh is the American charged with bombing a federal building in 1995, killing 168 people. He is to be put to death by lethal injection on May 16^th. The government may ‘broadcast’ the execution, via closed-circuit TV because hundreds of people have asked to witness this event. Death as entertainment? Again there is a twist in the criminal exploiting the media’s hunger for sensational footage. It was McVeigh who asked that his execution be carried on a public broadcast.

The pivotal issue is always technology. News, by definition, is information delivered fresh and fast. We have come a long way from the early days of radio when live coverage became possible. TV, with its ability to cover multiple details of an event through many camera angles and clever editing, made journalists lose the concept of a deadline altogether. As always, content –and accuracy—takes a hit. With the Internet, of course, the problem of the never-ending deadline has only exacerbated the issue. There is just no time to verify the source. Moreover, the blurring of the source itself is taking place with the onset of advanced forms of PR and marketing communication that targets news media. The Poynter Institute of Media Studies observes that "important borders are being erased…between news and promotion, between news and analysis, between newspapers, online, and broadcast. On MSNBC, it's hard to tell if the person on the screen is host, anchor, reporter, commentator, celebrity, legal expert or fashion model."

It’s as if the media are on a treadmill. But it’s only a warm up towards a time when they will give us faster access to more sources of news. Do you have the stomach for it?