There are a number of ethical lessons that I received from this class. One being from the lecture on getting the Deception and Truth-telling. I find that it is extremely important because to deceive is to trick those who trust you in order to get what you want, which is unethical. During this lecture I learned that you should first acknowledge that what you’re about to do is unethical, and ask yourself if a) you’d disclose the fact that you are deceiving; and b) how you would feel if someone deceived you in the same way. Another lesson that I found to be important was from the lecture on Conflict of Interest. I found this lecture important because your loyalty as a journalist, should be geared toward your audience, and if you allow self-interest or false loyalty get in the way, you are failing to fulfill your duty to the audience.
One case study that I learned that impressed me the most was from Shattered Glass. It amazes me that Stephen Glass was able to fabricate more than half of the articles that he published for The New Republic before anyone caught on. During his time at The New Republic, Glass invented people, quotes, and even entire events. Glass put up quite the front during the investigation, but he could not keep it up forever. Eventually he admitted to fabricating his stories so that they would be more interesting to the reader.
I think that this course will have a big impact on my future. I think this because it has taught me many meaningful lessons on ethics in the media, which these days are dwindling. With the rise of social media and the growth in fake news over the past few years, I realize how important it is to be ethical as a journalist despite the fact that sometimes it means you don’t run the story. Being that I am a Telecommunications major, I will be spending a lot of time working with the media and lessons from this class will aid in ensuring that I am ethical in my work.
I really liked this class and what I think made it so enjoyable was Dr. Z’s enthusiasm on the subject. He was able to keep the class interesting and help us to connect the material to the real world by offering case study evidence in every lecture. I think that ethics are very important and I think that this class should be mandatory for every PSU student.