Alexandra Peterkin
Comm 409
Comm 409 was a pretty interesting class, unfortunately it has a reputation that makes it seem really uninteresting because it is a required class. The first ethical issue that stuck out to me the most was moral incentive. I like that there is moral incentive for journalist because we have so much criticism it shows that we have rules of our own to abide by. So many people think that we are so biased towards situations, but this shows that we take a step back and make sure things are not crossing out own boundary line.
Also something that kind of plays into the first one is conflict of interest. I just have such a closed mind to things like this. I would never think to change my morals to have an upper hand on something, and I can’t believe that people actually do. We already get so much slack from the outside world and to just prove them right is annoying because there are so many journalist that are doing the right thing and reporting in the right way.
I cannot say that my morals were questionable before this class, but this class showed me that I am usually on the right side of the situation. What I really think will help me in the future of my career is to always make sure I am in the right and not just assume. There are a lot of young people coming into the journalism field and we are so eager to learn more and do well that we can easily make a mistake. I know from our class that it’s not stupid to ask a question it makes you seem smarter because it shows you don’t want to jeopardize the company’s reputation
Over all the class I would say was pretty good. The only thing that kind of gets old is the lecturing. That is just apart of the class though so I can’t say that’s a negative. I really like the textbook of the class, and the Author. Gene Foreman defined a lot of ethical terms that could probably get very confusing but he broke it down to make it very easy to understand. Also I like that he is the author of our book and he is very involved with Penn State and in the Foster Foreman conference. I think the book really helps with the lectures as well because it just reinforces everything that was said in class and just kind of clarifies everything. Also it was really helpful with the blogs that we did to use for some specific definitions. The book also came in handy when writing the group project, it has every topic needed and defined in it.
I also like that the class had quizzes, and blog posts as a main source of grading. Tests on all this information can get to be quite a lot and the way we learn is much better then what I have heard about other comm 409 classes. The only thing I did not like about the quizzes is that it had to be taken during our class period. I think it would have been just a bit more convenient to make it open for same amount of time but you can do it whenever that day. Over all I think everything in the class was pretty sufficient and I learned a lot and probably more then the other comm 409 classes.