Important ethical lessons: This course has taught me many ethical lessons. Two of the topics that I found most important were conflicts of interest and ethical issues as they pertain to digital and photo journalism.
Conflicts of interest was an interesting and important topic to me because I feel like if you have a conflict of interest you might not be trying to purposefully break ethics codes. I think that sometimes as a journalist it could be difficult to separate opinion with news, especially in today’s political climate. It is so important to remember that as a journalist, you always have to be extremely aware of thinking critically and not letting your personal opinions get in the way of objective and fair journalism. Ethical issues as they pertain to digital and photo journalism also seemed like a very important topic. I thought that the guest speaker that we had come in had some very interesting and poignant insights, and it really got me thinking about what photos get published in newspapers and other sources of media. When the guest speaker came we did an exercise where he showed us a photo and people in the class would share whether or not they would choose to publish the photo. These photos were real pictures that had been taken by photojournalist and the guest then shared with us whether or not the photo had been published or not. I thought it was interesting and important because it seemed as if these decisions were based less on ethical practice and more on taste. Something could be ethically OK to post but not necessarily tasteful. I liked the guideline of thinking about if it was something you wanted to look at while eating breakfast before deciding whether or not to publish.
Interesting case study: One case study that really interested me was the one about the Rolling Stone and the rape case at a UVA fraternity that turned out to be completely made up. It was interesting to me because I think that the repercussions of a story like that could be huge, and I think it’s so important for journalists to be checking their facts and their sources, especially in the current age of “fake news”. I thought that it was so important to think not only about the repercussions for the boys who were accused of the sexual assault and their fraternity, but also for women have actually been raped or sexually assaulted who may now feel afraid to come forward because of this falsified report which perpetuates the idea that many women make up stories about being sexually assaulted to get attention. I think especially in the case of sexual assault it is so important to have all the details verified because you never want to falsely implicate anyone with criminal charges. In this case study the fraternity that the girl claimed she had been raped at was suspended and the boys who were accused of rape faced a lot of troubling times. All of this turned out to be unnecessary because the story was completely false. A huge mistake on the reporters part was that she never corroborated Jackie’s (the victim) story with anyone else that Jackie mentioned being there that night. If she had just taken the extra steps to fact-check Jackie’s story she could have avoided a lot of trouble for many of the stakeholders. I think it is important to realize that as much as you want to feel badly for a victim in a story you may be reporting on or researching, it is important to remain objective to ensure that your victim is telling the whole truth.
Course impact & reflection: I think that this course has definitely taught me a lot of important lessons about ethical journalism and general ethics in the workplace. I can see myself using a lot of the information that we learned in this class in my future place of employment. I really enjoyed that this class used a lot of real world examples and case studies to teach us about important ethical issues and dilemmas. I think that these case studies were so helpful in seeing these ethical decisions being made by real journalism professionals as examples of what to do and what not to do. I would definitely recommend this course to a friend who wants to learn more about how they can become more ethical in their journalistic career!