The ethical lesson that had the biggest impact on me was the inaccurate reporting of photographs in the news. It is so wrong to do this and severely jeopardizes your credentials. Nowadays, our generation is so involved in the Internet that anyone can edit or Photoshop an image. It is a journalist’s job to report to the people accurate photos of reality. It doesn’t matter if it is graphic, if it happened or is happening the public has a right to see the real situation and image. Another really important lesson I learned was that fabrication is so easily done but the consequences are so bad. An example that really stuck with me was the Steven Glass video. He made up so many stories but it took him a while to get caught. He made up these stories to make himself more creditable. In the end he got caught and it completely messed up his career. Another story that made this lesson so important was Brian Williams and how he lied about being in a helicopter that crashed in Iraq.
My case study was about graphic photos in the news and I learned the most from it. One of the stories was from the Daily News where they completely altered a photo of a woman’s injured leg. It received a lot of backlash from the community. The editor tried to justify his decision saying that he did it out of sensitivity for the victims. I think it was wrong and it really made me think about what other photos I have seen that could have been altered. I don’t think it is right for them to change it because it isn’t reality.
Honestly, this course made me realize I definitely don’t want to be a journalist. There are so many difficult dilemmas and decision make that make journalists have a really hard job. I’m unsure whether or not I would be tempted by the “freebies” or if I could make the right decision to take the photo or write the story. This course was really eye opening and made me think about so many different things. It also made me question the media and news that if what I’m seeing is real or not. Overall, this course was really beneficial to me and I really enjoyed it. It was interesting and kept my attention through out the whole course.