One of the most important lessons I have learned in this class would have to be about graphic reporting. Graphic reporting can impact people’s lives in many different ways. If a reporter covers a story that has a graphic scene the most important thing I learned is to stay back. If you are not a part of the scene and are not involved, the less likely you are to do something that effects people. One of stories that impacted me the most was the Pittsburgh man being pulled from the river over the side of the boat. This had such an impact that it shows when a group of people see such a graphic photo it can change a persons mind to do the right thing. In this case it brought about the purchase of new boats that allow rescuers to pull people into the boat.
The second story that impacted me the most was the invasion of privacy of victims of sex crimes. A crime of that category and stature will affect that person the Estonia of their lives even before the news media gets a hold of their name. When the media gets a hold of even a suspect name can affect a person much worse than if they are guilty of the crime. This has the most impact because I have seen this happen first hand. If affected the person being accused of the crime when he never did it.
Knowing all of this knowledge will help me to realize when it is okay to publish a name or publish an extremely graphic photo on the front page of the paper. In the Boston Marathon for example, many papers published colored bloody pictures on the front page. It sparked the American people to search for the men who did this. In Pittsburgh when the man fell into the water and died, I would also choose to publish the picture, it was graphic but painted a picture.
Overall the class was very interesting. It was very interesting and helped to engage students in the class. I really enjoyed the class blogs, they allowed me to express my opinion to other people by just writing the blog. This also helped me to form my opinion knowing people will be reading my blog. The lessons also helped me to understand what it is to make an ethical decision. It is not black and white, but it was more grey. There are always exceptions to the rules so it is very hard to make those kind of decisions.