Ethical Lessons
A few of the ethical lessons that have stuck with me throughout the durations of this course were the naming victims case study, the photojournalism lecture, and the Stephen Glass lectures and movie.
My biggest takeaway from the Stephen Glass movie was how his fabrication of sources and stories impacted his reputation and the relationships he made, which led to him never working in the journalism field again. It made me realize the importance of accuracy and honesty in my work as a journalist.
The photojournalism lecture with the guest professor was the most memorable over the course of the semester. We viewed all of these tragic images and discussed whether we personally would have taken that picture as a photojournalist. At the end of the class, the professor revealed that he had actually taken all of the images we just saw. It made me realize that sometimes people have a split second to do their job, and that these pictures add to the impact and effect of the story itself in many ways.
Through these ethical lessons, I learned the importance of accuracy and honesty. In the professional world, your reputation and how well you do your job are the most important things and this class opened my eyes to just how important this is especially in news media.
Case Study
The naming victims case study stood out to me the most because it seems as if there is such a fine line as to whether or not it is acceptable to do so. It made me realize really just how difficult it is for journalists to make these regular decisions on a situation to situation basis. It also made me aware that by doing the wrong thing, it could cost you your job and reputation. I was glad to learn about this topic through class lectures and the presentation because it is an important topic that comes up often in the field of journalism.
Impact and Reflections
As Comm 409 comes to an end, I realized I have gotten a lot more out of this class than I thought I would have. Through the lectures and case study presentations, I’ve learned about different ethical dilemmas and common situations that journalists face on a daily basis. This course impacted my future career and life because it taught me to be more mindful and think
about how my actions affect those around me. Especially in journalism when you’re reporting on different situations where there are family members of victims involved, you have to be mindful and sensitive about the way you do it. Coming into this course, I was skeptical about how it would be possible to teach ethics but I feel more aware of different situations and mindful about how I would handle them. It was helpful to analyze common ethical issues journalists face regularly such as naming victims, copyright issues, and conflicts of interests, discussing what we would do in that situation and then learning what is professionally expected of us in the same situation. I liked the structure of the class and thought the different case study presentations were an effective way to learn about the different ethical issues in media.