Two important ethical lessons from the lectures/case studies (at least two) you have had in this course.
After all of our class lectures and case studies we have covered, it was difficult to pick two important ethical lessons I have taken away from this class. We have covered several interesting and intriguing topics and although it was a difficult decision, the two lessons that have stuck out to me the most was the Shattered Glass lecture and our guest lecture with John Beale about ethics in photojournalism. I found Shattered Glass to be one of the most interesting lessons we have had due to the fact that it was based on a true story. Due to the fact that this story was true was intriguing to me because it was hard to understand how someone could believe their lies like Stephen Glass did. I also found it interesting to see how his fabrication affected The New Republic as well as the public. Due to the fact that fabricating many stories had a huge effect on the public, it was interesting to see John Beale’s lecture with ethics in photojournalism. Although they are two different topics, they both have a huge influence on the public. I had the pleasure of having John Beale as a professor last semester and every lecture he gives continues to impress me. The lecture he recently shared with our class amazes me in every aspect from what he has seen and how he mentally dealt with a lot of the situations shown. Some of the pictures he had shown us, some students did not agree with which I found interesting. He explained that although, most of the pictures he had shown were hard for him to take, due to his job and what is expected, you have to look past morals sometimes and serve the public with the news. I found both of these lectures to be extremely interesting because they both affect the public immensely in different ways.
One case study you learned that impressed you the most, and why.
One case study that impressed me the most out of all of the case studies we have learned would have to be Shattered Glass. I find this case study to be the most interesting because of the affect that it had on Stephen Glass himself. Although Stephen Glass’ fabrication caused many problems for The New Republic and made the public less likely to read his work, his reaction towards his wrongdoings is what caught my attention. Stephen Glass published 41 stories and 21 out of those 41 stories were fabricated or completely made up, which was deceiving towards his boss as well as the public. After Glass was fired from The New Republic, the lack of remorse he showed towards his boss, colleagues as well as the public was in my opinion ethically wrong. In his 60-minute interview, Glass explained that the excitement that people showed about his stories would encourage him to continue his lying habits and made him feel a sense of social acceptance and boosted his confidence. This confidence booster caused him to disregard any feelings of remorse about his wrongdoing. He did explain in an interview that he knew what he was doing was wrong, but the reaction from the public was so electrifying that he couldn’t control himself. I found this case to be intriguing because it is interesting to me that having your confidence boosted or being socially accepted could take over mentally and cause you from making the morally decision.
Envision the course’s impact on your future career and life.
Going into this course I didn’t realize how impactful and useful it would be. When I graduate from college, I hope to work for a large company with their communications team or for a public relations firm in New York City. This course has taught me how to be a successful journalist by following certain rules such as following the five ethical principles. Being in the communications field can be difficult sometimes in the aspect of presenting information to the public. After taking this course I am confident that I will use all lessons within my future career and even throughout life itself.
Your reflection on this course as a whole.
As this course is coming to an end, overall, I would say that this course was extremely interesting and useful. Due to the fact that there are a lot of “fine lines” in journalism, this class has showed me how to get the message across without crossing these “fine lines” which could end up causing great distress to certain stakeholders. I enjoyed this class because everything that we were taught could occur in real life and real-life examples, such as certain case studies, were shown in class. Everything that this class had to offer including the guest lectures and case studies will be extremely useful for my future, career wise and school wise.