Situation Definition:
Marty Baron’s presentation on March 21 included a number of relevant ethics questions to the field of journalism. His opening points hinged on the fact that the media cannot ethically “keep its mouth shut” in light of the Trump administration’s insistence. A recurring theme in Baron’s speech, a point he came back to time and time again, was the media’s capacity to listen. He proposed a question at the start of his lecture: “Do we need to listen better?”
Analysis:
For starters, the answer to the preceding question, both in my eyes and in Baron’s, is a resounding “yes.” We do need to listen better. This does not necessarily mean we have to praise those to whom we listen, “saluting” as Baron puts it, but rather it means that the media must listen to all sources equally and without prejudice.
It is important to recognize that the media is historically intended to be a check on abusive power in government. When the powerful act out of line, the media is there to bring attention to the transgression—confusion comes into play with Trump’s supposed “war with the media.”
Baron made it abundantly clear that stories which point out the flaws in government are not doing so out of ill-will. There are no bad intentions in a news story, or at least there shouldn’t be.
Trump’s “war with the media” makes the assumption that the media is an opposition party when, in fact, the media cannot be accurately labeled as a party at all. It is an amalgamation of hundreds of newsrooms acting separately. “War with the media” is therefore an inaccurate representation of the media and its goals as such.
To put it simply, the media does not look to pontificate; instead it looks to inform the public of news it deems newsworthy, serving as a check and a balance on the government in the process.
It is easy to assume all ethical matters as black and white, where there is a clear right and wrong.
But it is more complicated than that. Journalism ethics “can usefully be analyzed using more than just justice and harm principles.”1 As Baron made clear, there is more to journalism ethics than a simple value-based judgment; we must account for another swath of factors that contribute to the decision-making process.
Conclusion:
Marty Baron made many points which should always be in the back of a journalist’s mind. Not only did he talk about a specific subset of ethical issues, but these ethical dilemmas can serve as guidelines for how to be a better journalist. Listening is more important now than ever—with the advent of the “fake news” phenomenon, it is vital that the media listens to everyone.
One final takeaway from Baron’s presentation is, as Hal Berghel puts it, that “recognizing an unwelcome phenomenon isn’t the same as legitimizing it.” To be sure, “fake news” can easily be classified as “unwelcome”; it is our job to recognize the existence an take actions to prevent and expel it.
References
Knowlton, Steven & McKinley, Christopher J. “There’s More to Ethics Than Justice and Harm,”
Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Vol 71, Issue 2, pp. 133 – 145, August-22-2015.
- Berghel, “Lies, Damn Lies, and Fake News,” in Computer, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 80-85, Feb. 2017.