One important ethical lesson I have learned in this course is to seek the truth but to minimize harm. As a journalist, it is of the utmost importance to share valuable information with your readers, so they can keep informed about the world. But it is also important to protect the people involved, i.e. naming victims of sexual crimes, as to respect their privacy. Obviously, this is a very difficult thing to do, which is why all journalists need to practice the Ethical Decision-Making model when making journalistic choices. The first part of this model is to define the situation objectively, which requires detailed information that is relevant to the ethical dilemma. This will help you understand what ethical dilemma you are trying to solve. The second part is to identify principles, which are the modes of ethical reasoning that may be applicable to the situation. The last part is to choose loyalties; to decide who and what is the most important for you to stand up for, whether that be yourself, the public, the readers, or the law. Overall, the ethical principal of seeking the truth but minimizing harm can be a difficult one to follow, which is why it is so important journalists practice critical thinking before making decisions.
A second important ethical lesson I have learned in this course is the importance of social responsibility in reporting. In short, journalists have a social responsibility to paint a realistic portrayal of society, no matter how bad or dark or overly positive it may seem. For example, violent crime cannot be ignored in the news, since it has to be shared to inform the public and possibly protect them. But, an overload of violence and disaster stories provided a warped sense of reality. It might make people overly afraid, and that the world is simply a dangerous and awful place with no good in it, which truly isn’t the case. Journalists have the very important job of using common sense in balancing the public’s news needs against the requirements of social responsibility. In a professional sense, social responsibility means to seek ethical high ground in reporting news. In either definition of the word, it is the responsibility of the journalists to take great care in what they report, so they can fulfill their social responsibility to their readers, and the public overall.
I know this was a long time ago, and we have learned about so many fascinating case studies since then, but the Stephen Glass case always stuck with me. I believe it was the fact that it was a true story, and it was so outlandish, that it has always remained in the back of my mind when we talk about case studies. The lengths that Glass went to deceive his editors and the readers by creating these tall tales simply to entertain the readers really shocks me. The stories get bigger and more eccentric, and his lies become more in detail and complex; I mean, he went as far as to create a fake website and use someone to impersonate the person he claimed he got information from! I would never have gone that far to deceive someone, and he got away with it for so long. The craziest part to me is the fact that he never really seemed remorseful for lying to the readers for years, only that he got caught. He used his hunger to move up in the magazine and his need for approval and attention to trick all of the readers of the magazine and force them to issue an apology. I think the scale of the deception that Stephen Glass engaged in is why I was so impressed by the case study. It truly taught me that no matter what, to tell the truth and believe in my talents so I can move up in the workplace without constantly looking over my shoulder, worried that I would be caught doing something deceitful and have all of my work blow up in my face.
This course will have a big impact on my future career and life. Though I am not a comm/ journalism major, I am a psychology major, and ethics is a huge part of the subject. We have constantly talked about following ethical procedures when it comes to conducting research, and there is a lot of parallels to be drawn between psychology ethics and news media ethics. Going forward in my career in human resources, I will definitely think about ethical decision making, and how to utilize critical thinking to make the best decisions for myself and the people I work with. I will also consider ethical principles and use them to guide how I approach different situations in my life. As a whole, this course has been incredibly enjoyable, and I am so glad I was able to take it, even though I am just a Media Studies minor. I never really dissected ethics when it came to the news, and this class gave me a whole new perspective on journalisms and how vital it is to make ethical decisions, because the media has the ability to change a nation’s mindset. Overall, this class has taught me so many lessons, including ethical principles, how to discover the truth in journalism, how influential and deceptive digital media can be, and how hard it can be for a journalist to navigate society and create un-biased and ethically pieces. I am so excited to utilize the lessons learned in this class and have them guide me for the rest of my professional career and personal social life.