Eric Yarnell
Blog 5-Course Reflection
Ethical Lessons
One of the most important things, I think, that I learned in this class, is how to properly make an ethical decision. Things such as what questions to ask yourself before you make a decision, what to take into consideration, and to think about how what you write will affect others. Two things that really resonated with me were “the breakfast test,” and whether or not you would want your mother to see it. Those two things are important, I think, is because people don’t want to see gruesome new first thing in the morning, and I know I wouldn’t want my mother reading anything too graphic. Another important ethical lesson that resonated with me, was how it is important to not intervene in certain situations, such as helping police catch a suspect or helping out people during a time of need in order to keep the story authentic. While the right thing to do is help someone, but if the audience finds out a journalist did something like that, they could believe there is a conflict of interest.
Case Study
One case study that stuck with me, is the one that my group and I did about the famous photo of a South Vietnamese soldier shooting a Viet Cong officer. This case study really impressed me because it was such a graphic photo, but it was circulated in newspaper all across the United States. While it was so graphic, and generally photos like that are not published. But, many people made the argument that it shed a light to the general public as to what was going on in the Vietnam War. From that, I learned that perhaps it is okay to publish photos like that, since a journalist’s main purpose is to serve the public interest.
Course Impact
Overall, this course will certainly have a impact on my future career and life. I will definitely take all of the lessons learned in class and the textbook as I start my career as a journalist. I can see myself in a few years, and I receive an assignment to go cover something that I haven’t before, and it’s a little more graphic and a little more dicey than what I’m used to. I know I’ll think back to Dr. Z’s class and remember what he talked about in order to do the right thing.
Course thoughts
I really enjoyed this course, mainly because there wasn’t too much work involved, and it allowed to think more about what was talked about during class. I always walked out of class thinking about what we had talked about that day, and even use some of the things in my daily life and in my other coursework. I also enjoyed doing these blogs, and enjoyed doing the group project as I learned a lot about making ethical decisions while doing it.