Throughout Comm 409, there have been a lot of lessons that focus on real-life experiences. They prepare future workers, whether they will be in the field of communications or not, the opportunity to learn to make ethical decisions and to become a better person. While the class taught us to use academic databases and how to cite sources we obtained, it also helped us in making ethical decisions that could end up impacting our life in a far greater manner.
One important lesson that I learned was to avoid conflicts of interest in all sorts of my work. When someone offers you a free meal, free tickets to a game, or anything like that, its truly hard to turn down. But what this class taught me is that your credibility is worth much more than one free steak with a side of mashed potatoes. The main thing I learned about conflicts of interest is that they don’t require you to act differently after benefiting from something. As long as the appearance of a conflict of interest exists, the readers of your work or you fellow coworkers will have enough to consider whether you were influenced by whatever benefit that you received.
Another important lesson that was taught during the class was to use social media. Social media can often get a negative reputation for the way it dominates certain people’s life. Those people consume it for solely a social aspect instead of embracing the networking capabilities that it has to offer. Networking is crucial being a journalism student. You need to be able to find sources for stories, employers that would like to read your work, and readers that will be interested in what you say. One way to increase your reputation or help meet others in the industry is to use social media. This class taught me that I needed to create a linked in account. Hopefully the account will further my connections in the business and help me in launching my career.
One case study that I was extremely interested in was the ISIS case study on how the media reports on violence. As a future journalists I felt this case study was crucial to my understanding of media. I learned that there is a way to report on violence without giving the terrorists what they so desperately crave. When reporting on situations like that, you must have respect for the family while also reporting the news.