Comm 409 has reminded and enlightened me on ethical principles. For instance, the first week of class Dr.Z talked about plagiarism and fabrication. Stephen Glass’ story was a perfect way of showing how fabricating could affect the life of a journalist. He lost everything because of him wanting his stories to be more interesting. At first, he would make up sources in his story then he began just making up his stories completely. In the end, he ended losing his job and when he tried to become a lawyer, he was denied because of his history of fabricating. His source of credibility was gone. Once you lose your credibility, it’s hard to get it back. So this taught me to do honest work, it pays off in the end.
Another lesson I learned was when we learned about invasion of privacy and how that it was unethical to put a victim of rape crime name or face out in the media, but ethical to put the person who assumed that committed the rape. I understood why the victim’s name or face because they could relive the tragic event that happened to them, but I didn’t think it was fair to name the accused rapist until they were found guilty. It could cause issues in the end for the person being accused.
The case study that impressed me the most was the Rolling Stone’s UVA rape case where the girl made up a story about being raped and the reporter just went with it. The reporter did not do her job right because she was affected by the girl’s story. She didn’t ask or obtain the all the information and sources that she need to make the story as truthful as it could get. She let her emotions affect her judgment when it came to reporting. I learned that as a reporter, their job is to be a watchdog for the public and provide information that the public would not be able to obtain on their own.
I feel that this course will stay with me as I go into the field of journalism and throughout my whole life because ethics plays a big role in both. Since ethics is basically moral understanding, I feel that this class has helped me become a more thoughtful individual. This class has not only made me think about my moral principles and the way that I think about things, but also looking at others perspectives on things and how they may come to a different conclusion than me.
I feel that this course is a good course for anyone to take whether you are going into a field of communications or not. Dr. Z makes you think and question things that you never think ton questions. The topics that were brought up and discussed were interesting. It was also interesting to see the thoughts of yours to the thoughts of someone else. This class shows you what your moral standings are.