Situational Definition: Three prominent CNN journalists resigned last June due to the ethical conflict that they could not stand by all the information written in an article that was published. The article was about Anthony Scaramucci being linked to a Russian investment fund that was being investigated by the Senate. The journalist’s involved are examples of the intense ethical issues that they did not report or source correctly and did not tell the truth about Scaramucci.
Analysis: The CNN reporters wrote the story based on a single anonymous source. News companies, especially well respected ones like CNN, usually require at least two sources before publishing a story. The journalist’s knowingly did not report and source the story correctly which lead to them tarnishing the reputation of Scaramucci because he was being wrongly accused. The fact that these journalist lacked sourcing and reporting funneled into another ethical issue of telling the truth about the story. Trump even tweeted saying, “Wow, CNN had to retract big story on “Russia,” with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!” Because of these journalists mistakes they were forced to resign, meaning they lost their jobs and now have tainted reputations as writers and reporters.
The reporters did issue an apology and CNN retracted the story from their website. In the article, How Could This Happen?, it states, “Sincerely admitting mistakes, showing regret for them and correcting them because it’s the right thing to do – not waiting for threats of lawsuits – and announcing long-term corrective actions to prevent recurrences.” (page 7) From an ethical standpoint, the journalist should not have published the story at all but they did take steps in the right direction when realizing their mistakes.
The challenges faced when trying to decide whether they should publish a story because it is juicy and will appeal to an audience to gain praise or a spot on the front page is never worth getting caught and losing your job in the end. I believe CNN handled the situation as best as the could when the damage was already done but what could have been a preventive factor was being more strict on the fact checking and making sure their writers have more than just one source. In the article, Why They Lie, it says, Misplaced trust could turn out to be the most remediable cause of the cheating problem. All journalists need to remain truthful in their writing or else their audiences will not be able to truth their other work or the company they work for.
Conclusion: The best thing a journalist can do now is make sure that everything they write is truthful. They must be transparent in their writing and go the extra mile to double fact check every aspect of their stories. I’ve learned, as an aspiring journalist, through this case study that no matter how good of a journalist you are it is always most important to seem trustworthy and reliable to a reader before anything else.
References:
Eaves, K. L. (2007). How Could This Have Happened? A Rhetorical Criticism of the Apologia Employed by Newspapers After an Incident of Journalistic Fraud. Conference Papers — National Communication Association, 1.
Shapiro, I. (2006). Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating. Canadian Journal Of Communication, 31(1), 261-266.
Micheal, M G. (2017). 3 CNN Journalists Resign After Retracted Story on Trump Ally. The New York Times Company.
Donald, J T. (2017) [realDonaldTrump]. (June 27, 2017) Wow, CNN had to retract big story on “Russia,” with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS! [Tweet] Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor