Throughout my semester in COMM 409, we learned about many different aspects of ethics in journalism, but two lessons really made an impact on me; “conflicts of interest” and “deception and truth-telling.” These two ethical principals were important to me, because they can arise quite often in reporting and journalism, and it can be difficult to know how to address these situations.
“Conflicts of interest” are moral dilemmas that journalists can face when they are reporting. A conflict of interest makes a journalist partial to one side, making them unable to fulfill their duty as a journalist, or a part of their other obligation. An example of a conflict of interest would be a journalist who is a part of a book club who wants to report on their book club. By reporting on their own book club, they would be providing their readers with a biased view, thus creating a conflict of interest.
One would think that “deception and truth-telling” is not a difficult problem to solve in the reporting world; the whole point of reporting is to present readers with true, factually-correct information. The primary obligation of a reporter is to write stories that are accurate and fact-checked. It should not be difficult to write the truth. However, problems with reporting the truth still arise.
The case study that had the biggest impact on me was based on the movie we watched, Shattered Glass, about Stephen Glass, a skilled reporter who fabricated his stories to increase the popularity of his articles. Glass’s actions were completely unethical. A reporter’s first duty is to his or her readers, and by providing readers with embellished stories, Glass was violating his duty to his readers. It is crucial that readers are receiving all accurate information, or else they will be misinformed, and that defies the point of reading news articles.
This course was so helpful to me. I learned many lessons about the challenges reporters face, and how to manage them when they arise. I will definitely utilize the lessons I learned in future COMM classes, and wherever my journalism career takes me.
I would recommend COMM 409 to anyone, even though it is only required for journalism majors. Not only was it helpful for my major, it was also interesting, and I am better for the experience of having this class. The lessons I learned in this class can not only be applied to journalistic situations, but life in general. One should always fact-check before telling a story, to ensure they are communicating accurate information. Also, one should always make sure they are acting in a way that does not result in a conflict-of-interest.