Two important ethical lessons that I learned from this class and from case studies include ways to make ethical decisions by learning from case studies in class, and the second lesson was the discussion of online media from in class lecture. The in class ethical decision making models offered very helpful ways to make decisions regarding ethical dilemmas. As for the online media section this was very interesting for me as online news and journalism is an evolving area. Both of these lessons I will most likely use the rest of my career as I am pursuing a career in photography. No matter the job I get after college ethics will always have a key role in my career.
Making ethical decisions for a photojournalist, or a photographer in general is involved in the entire process of making a picture. This class has taught me new ways to consider making and even publishing images. For example, the photojournalism examples of taste and whether or not to publish images that may be too graphic for the public were very informative. The case studies of Professor Beale’s work, and questionable cover pages for the magazines and newspapers were helpful to see past examples of work that brought up ethical issues. The case of the New York Post’s questionable cover pages such as the man on the train tracks was a very interesting case that depicted a man stuck on the train tracks with a train coming towards him. The issue in the photo was that the man ended up dying and the title on the image said “Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die.” Then below that it says in large font, “Doomed.” The images ethical considerations include that the man in the image died and the photographer did not help the man out of the tracks. The photographer’s response was that he was using his flash to warn the conductor of the train to slow down. This case was very informative for me in terms of ethical decision making for taking pictures and also for publishing images.
As for this course’s impact on my future career and life as a whole this relates back to the two important ethical lessons that this class has taught me. For example, this classes lessons on making ethical decisions I will use for the rest of my career in photojournalism. The case studies and examples that we learned in class were very helpful for me to see when it is appropriate to take and publish images with ethical issues. Secondly, the online media section about web journalism and news on social media is extremely interesting to me and I may even look into it for jobs. The final lesson was previously talked about, the photojournalism section was very valuable to me. These three sections had the most impact on me and I believe will have the greatest impact on career and life.
Overall this course was intriguing and showed me new aspects to the field of journalism and media that I never knew existed. The ethical lessons from case studies and in class lectures were very beneficial for me and will help me with my career in photojournalism and life in general. Ethics and issues with ethics will forever be in my career with photography and this class has given me numerous options and examples of how to handle these issues with ethics that is why I found this class so beneficial and interesting.