Throughout this semester, I have learned so much regarding ethics. As a journalism major, it is extremely important to be ethical, always. Whether you are making a decision about what you should or should not put into a story, or simply how you treat people you come across during your time as a journalist, you should always be ethical. COMM 409 has been a very eye opening course. There were many topics we covered, but the two that stood out to me the most were the lectures on photojournalism and the lectures on decision making regarding the 911 calls we listened to.
The lectures on photojournalism were very interesting. We looked at a number of photographs, some graphic and some not, and had class discussions on whether we thought it was appropriate as journalists to use them with our stories. It was interesting to hear the different opinions of my classmates, and then seeing if and how the journalist actually used them in their stories. I think it is very important to be ethical when it comes to photojournalism. One has to decide whether the photo actually adds to the story, if it is too graphic, who will be effected by the photo, etc. Other, non-graphic, examples included photos that were not used ethically because the journalist photo shopped them. You, as a journalist, want and need to show things as they are, that is your job – to report what is going on, not to edit it to make it what you feel it should show.
Similar to this, was our discussion with the 911 calls, moments before a great tragedy, and whether or not we would have aired the call on the TV news broadcast. I have to say, the 911 call was a little disturbing to me while we listened to it, just knowing prior that the woman drowning, did not make it. There were very mixed opinions in our class discussion, but we ended up finding out later in the lecture that some news channels aired it, while others did not. I thought the one channel that did not air it and said the family requested they not air it, was very respectful of the situation and ethical. I think ethics is extremely important to be ethical in situations like these.
The one case study that I learned from was from the movie, Shattered Glass. This movie, based off of real events, brought up an extremely important topic regarding ethics – lying. Stephen Glass was a very young, but respected journalist, but it comes out later that he has completely fabricated multiple of his “best” stories. This movie made it clear that fabricating, even on one part of a story, is never okay. It showed in the movie that Stephen Glass ruined all of his friendships, and credibility because of lying. I was very surprised he got away with some of the lies he made up, just because of all of the fact checking articles go through before printing, but Stephen Glass went above and beyond to cover his tracks. He just continued to dig himself a deeper hole, and it ended up ruining him and his career. Fabrication was a big topic of our class discussion in the beginning semester and I believe it is one of the most important when it comes to ethics, especially in journalism.
This course has set me up with very important guidelines to follow in the future as I pursue my journalism career. This class has already helped me in times of decision making, to choose the more ethical decision, and it will continue to do so in the future. This course has had a real impact on my future and I know I will refer back to the things I have learned here many times. I personally really enjoyed this class. I am very glad this course is required here because I think everyone, especially communications majors need to be taught about ethics. Dr. Zhong did a great job teaching this course and sparking very insightful class discussions. The lessons I learned in this course will always be something I reference in the future.