Among important lessons as a journalist we learned in the class, I would say that honesty as a journalist and intervention are important as a reporter. First, we learned one of the most significant duty of the journalists in the lecture, and it was honesty with plentiful information of fake news. In general, the journalists have a right to deliver information without fabrication to the audience or reader. I learned how the fake news work in the society and why some journalists should stop publishing dishonest report. Second, we learned that reporters have a right to be observer, not a participant in order to provide true and unchanged information of the situation to the audience. It was interesting to observe the conflict from the intervention of the reporter into the case such as bullying in the school. After I saw a live example of reporters’ duty conflict with a video of intervention’s ineffective case in a class, I realized that it was a good opportunity to think about the right behavior that the reporters should do.
In the class, we watched a video of Stephan Glass case and it gave me the biggest impression among the other case studies since the case study was very first case which we deeply dealt with. Also, it was good and impressive story by showing how the person fabricated stories and the person behaves. I was impressed that how Stephan Glass reacted towards written fabricated information and how the other journalists reveal the fact or show the faith as the journalist. It was interesting to learn the importance of delivering honest information in the reporting and what the faith the journalists should hold.
I am not planning to be a journalist as my career goal; however, I consider that the lessons I learned from the course, COMM 409, would be helpful to remind me how to be honest on my work, especially when I have a chance to deliver information towards the audience and also the lessons allowed to think about the significance of one’s privacy protection while I work in my career field. Since I am interested in Marketing at this point, I believe there would be opportunities to provide information or interact with the audience; therefore, the ethical lessons related to the honesty and privacy would be effective and helpful for my future career.
Overall, I personally feel that this course has full of interesting and effective lessons to learn for students who are willing to be a journalist since some portions such as honesty and privacy case. Furthermore, it would be for other students who will be in other career fields as well. Therefore, I consider that this course was useful and effective lecture to take.