The lesson that immediately comes to mind when I think about what I’ve learned from this class is the career and mistakes of former New Republic reporter, Stephen Glass. Perhaps this topic sticks out to me the most because it was one of the first lessons of the semester or because we spent over a week talking about Glass and the ethics behind the events. Learning about Glass’ mistakes emphasized how vital the truth is in journalism. It’s important to the individual journalist because whether they report truthfully can either make or break their career. The truth is also important to the journalism industry as a whole — bringing honest, accurate and truthful reporting to audiences is the mission and foundation of good journalism. But because of this lesson I think the truth is most important to audiences. Reporting truthfully builds audiences, and then determines whether they stay or are lost. And if audiences can’t access reliable information through journalists, then what’s the point of the industry and profession?
The other class and lesson that I gained the most from was professor John Beale’s guest lecture. As a young photojournalist, I really valued getting to learn about the ethical dilemmas a seasoned photojournalist has encountered. Learning about the ethics behind photography is something that I haven’t learned in much depth yet, as I’ve only taken the intro photojournalism course so far. Because of this, learning about my future career aside from its technical aspects was really intriguing and helpful.
The case study that impressed me most was the example from the textbook’s chapter four of photographer Russ Dillingham tackling the fleeing fugitive. Dillingham is a photographer, just as I aspire to be. Photographers normally watch as action happens and only photograph it, sometimes even when the events are horrific like with John Tlumaki at the Boston Marathon bombing. Reading the case study made me wonder how I would react if I was asked to take action. The case study brought up a lot of questions about my personal decisions, not just about general ethics concerns. On many assignments, I feel like the camera is just a window through which I watch events unfold, like I’m not really part of them. If I was asked to jump into the middle of action, would I?
This course has introduced me to how much deeper the job of a journalist is than to simply write or make visuals. There are multiple layers of complex decision making that go into the job everyday because journalism isn’t just for the maker — its for the audience, the consumers. What I’ve learned in this class will help me with understanding the stakes of future jobs and the stories I will cover. This class has emphasized how crucial transparency and integrity is in the industry and what happens to both the reporter and the readers when that transparency and integrity isn’t honored or prioritized. I don’t want to follow in the footsteps of those journalists in the case studies that examine crushing mistakes, I want to be like those journalists we’ve talked about who make journalism look like the honorable and vital profession that I believe it is. But this course has also taught me that the circumstances facing journalists aren’t always easy — more often than not the situations and decisions are the opposite of easy. I’m glad discussion and student presentations were such a large part of the course — I was forced to practice ethical decision making and truly think about how I would respond. I don’t think there would have been any better way to learn the material than to have to engage in the decision making process as we did.