Nowadays, many young people are extremely impetuous, and any misstep can lead to resentment and protest, as if the world should center on them. As is known to all, college students are the stage of students’ physical and psychological maturity, as well as the most important stage for the formation of outlook on life and world view.
College students, as the new generation of mankind, have a strong ability to accept but also have a strong curiosity. Although college students are technically adults, they cannot well judge the temptation of the outside world due to their lack of experience in the society.
In addition to the adverse impact of many biased contents that are free to browse online, which leading to a certain decline in the ideological and moral phenomenon to college students.
In the education of colleges and universities, schools ignore the ideological education of college students to a certain extent, leading to some problems in the ideological education of college students.
COMM409, the class of News Media Ethics, has made a good counterattack to this phenomenon. Throughout this course, I have learned many things about the do’s and don’ts of journalism and what is ethically correct and incorrect.
At the beginning of the class we start off with a screening in class, “shattered glass”, the mistakes Stephen Glass made throughout his career are important lessons to us. Not only other journalists, but anyone who is making content, anyone with a career in media. The important ethical lessons learned is that every publication should uphold the principles of honesty and truth telling, and definitely not deception and manipulation.
Mid semester, we went over some interesting topic during class, undercover reporting. To me personally, reality is never just black or white, a gray area is often the hardest to determine. Many questions are remained “unsolved”. Under what circumstances can journalists conduct undercover investigation? Is undercover investigation the final and ultimate investigative tool of journalists? Is this in line with the ethics of journalism? Everyone has a different answer.
I don’t know how much this course changed me as a person, but I am sure that I’ve learnt from this. The consequences of being dishonest is huge in the field of journalism. Even minor things like PhotoShoped 2 leg out of your picture can cost your job.
Dr.Z is a talkative and wise man. I visited him many times in his office hour during this semester. As for a conclusion for this class. I’d like to quote one of my classmate, Chris Hess, “when we were doing our presentation, Dr.Z spend many time taking pictures and stuff, he is just like proud dad to us. ”