News Media Ethics better known as COMM 409 is a key course for every journalism student. As for me even though journalism is my major I do not see myself taking that career path. Most of the things taught in this course is pretty much making sense of your common sense. What I mean by this is that Dr. Z spoke on things that as a journalist and human-being you should know he just made it very clear on choices you should make when faced with ethical decisions.
In this course, a lot of lessons were covered from things like relationships with sources to stealing words from someone else but there were two lessons that stood out for me particularly. One was ethical and unethical images, which ones should you take, publish, or would raise emotions. My focus in my major is photojournalism so it had a lot to do with me and whatever publication I decide to work for if I were to continue in this industry. Dr. Z did not teach this lesson one of my photography professors did by the name of John Beale. The lesson talked about what you can do as a photojournalist like digital manipulation and putting someone in a light they do not want to be in just with an image. He also talked about when there is a time to be a photographer and a human and when is the right time to get involved or just do your job. Just like plagiarism can destroy a reporter photo manipulation can destroy a photographer. This was amazing to me because from the media I knew that sometimes things were digitally altered and that was okay, but clearly it is not.
Another lesson that stood out for me was conflict of interest. This can be applied within and outside of the journalism field. A conflict of interest is when a journalist allows self-interest to interfere with his or her reporting is committing a flagrant violation of trust (Foreman, 138). Just having a hobby could cause a conflict of interest. As a journalist you have to know how to separate your job from your personal life. The message I received from this lesson is to tell as little as possible about your job and never let it interfere with anything. Things like knowing the district attorney from your sewing club can affect you covering the crime beat.
Overall for this course I would not change a thing. The teaching is effective and the fact there is only three quizzes, five blogs, and two papers makes it a lot easier to get through. I one thing I loved the most were the opportunities of extra credit presented. There is always room for improvement.