When I first enrolled in COMM 409, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Ethics didn’t seem like something that could be taught, only learned on your own, so I was a bit pessimistic about taking a class dedicated entirely to the topic. Now that we are at the end of the term, I can say with some authority that this class is the most important one a potential journalist could hope to take.
One of the most important ethical lessons I learned was about journalists being partial observers. The public trusts journalists to be history’s witnesses, not participants, and anything else would jeopardize the integrity of a journalist’s coverage. Journalists are at an event to report, not to participate with what is going on. There can be severe consequences for journalists who are active participants in something that their news organization is covering.
Another important ethical lesson I learned in this class was avoiding conflict of interest while reporting. The examples shown in class about what constitutes a conflict of interest were fascinating. These include not accepting free tickets to games or becoming overly friendly with sources. This is an important concept for anyone going into journalism so that coverage can remain fair and neutral.
Finally, learning about graphic content and when it is appropriate to use it was also important. I specifically enjoyed Professor Beale’s presentation on graphic photojournalism and what is appropriate to run in a newspaper. Scenes depicting death, violence and other graphic scenes are often inappropriate for readers to see.
Overall, COMM 409 will be of utmost importance in a future career in journalism. Not only are ethics applicable to journalism, but also ethics are valuable in every day life no matter what field you are in. This course taught us all some very valuable lessons about life and how to conduct yourself when making important decisions. This course refined my decision making skills and taught me how to think ethically, which is an extremely important concept.
I thought that COMM 409 was very well run. I enjoyed the structure, both of the lessons and the grading structure. I have found that college students are very concerned about subjective grading that it distracts from the learning experience. That was not the case in this class, as the syllabus and expectations were very clear from the beginning.
One think that could be improved is using more information from the textbook in every day classes. The textbook was only really used to take the online reading courses and not in the lessons each week. I found myself really interested in the content of the textbook while taking the reading quizzes so it would be useful to learn more from the book during class to accompany the PowerPoint.
Overall, I was very impressed and I will carry the lessons I learned in this ethics class with me for a long time.