Ryan Kliegerman
Tuesday December 10th, 2019
Throughout the year, we’ve learned about the responsibility of journalists to serve the public, and how certain obstacles can prevent that from happening. It’s important for journalists to remain impartial to the stories they cover, even when a conflict of interest occurs. In class, we talked about conflicts of interest and how they can affect a narrative. If a reporter angles his story to favor a candidate the reporter themselves supports, he is acting out of self-interest, and not loyal to the public he’s informing. This is seen as unethical, both by the public and by other journalists. Regardless of how strong the relationship is between the journalist and other party (candidate, company, peer), it’s the responsibility of the journalist to prevent these from influencing their work. While it’s up to the journalist to maintain honesty and integrity, most conflicts of interest are caused by outside factors. This is known as a “state of affairs,” where the situation at hand provides opportunity to commit unethical decisions. State of affairs can happen without any injustice ever occurring, which is why journalist’s must stay weary of biased presences influencing their actions. This lesson was very informative to me because I always assumed journalists were operating with biases relative to the company they worked with. Having the standard be that journalists reveal their full knowledge of a situation regardless of bias is a high bar to set, but one that is necessary to truly inform the public. A journalist pushing a certain viewpoint may win over the audience, but a journalist who is able to appeal to the general public about what is occurring reaches a much wider range and is more often making the right ethical decisions.
A lesson that illustrated the importance of truthful reporting well was the unit we did on fake news. Fake news can have a very detrimental impact on the public and it’s perception of a certain issue, and often discredits hardworking journalists making reasonable arguments. In the case of fake news, it’s important for these stories to be filtered out and to be recognized for what they are: propaganda. In our class we learned about two different types of fake news that can influence the public, misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation is the spread of false news through a mistake, such as a reporter taking a satire piece seriously and following up with his own report. Meanwhile, disinformation is the spread of false information through deliberate falsehoods in someone’s work. A fake article/video could be made slandering a recognizable figure, such as the president. With the technology current available, disinformation is becoming increasingly common and harder to tell apart from real news. This creates a suspicion in the audience as to whether or not what they’re reading is a lie designed by the publisher and creates a lack of trust between the audience and journalist. Lying can cause the same affect, as its absolutely vital for journalists to be honest and forthcoming. This was highlighted in the lesson and came up in many of the case studies we looked at.
The most fascinating case study I observed in the class was the story of Stephen Glass. Ultimately, Glass soiled his own reputation in the hopes of escaping the pressures of succeeding in his writing and committed one of the worst acts a journalist can. He lost his job and became a public disgrace, all because of his reaction to the situation he was in. We discussed if Stephen Glass was a bad person or just did a bad thing, and I think that conversation really stuck with me. Although most would assume Glass is someone you would never want to associate with, it’s possible that the stress of his situation was just too much for him, and he found relief in taking shortcuts, like many other journalists have been exposed for over time. There is a large grey area when it comes to plagiarism and lying in journalism, but in no way is it ever acceptable. Often times it feels like it will effect no one if a single source or quote is made up, which is why it’s so important to educate young journalists on the repercussions that often follow these actions. In the future, I will certainly stay weary of ethical conflicts and make sure no outside presence affects my decision-making. I believe I’ve learned a lot about the boundaries a journalist can’t cross, and how remaining impartial can be hard without critically thinking about your decisions. As a decision maker I feel like I’ve learned the value of putting aside my my own self-interest for the greater good.