Overall, I enjoyed this course very much. It provided more knowledge and insight into the journalism world and the rules behind ethics. I saw why many journalists did what they did not following the ethical guidelines and it made me think on ways I can make sure no not make the same mistake. I certainly will use what I learned in this class in my future career.
One important ethical issue I learned from this class was the concept of telling the truth. It requires a journalist to tell the truth about the facts and truth behind every story in unbiased reporting. If a journalist does not tell the truth, the readers will not believe that journalist, any of their work, and then link it back to their employer and not trust that news outlet. It’s important for a journalist to be transparent in reporting the facts as they are told about any event. It is a journalist’s job to provide the facts, that way it’s up to the reader to interpret those facts.
The second ethical issue that I took away from this course was fabrication. I did not know there are several cases where journalists have fabricated their work while working for big media outlets. Fabricating a story is not right and leads into the issue of telling the truth. Fabrication leads readers to believe a lie and have a different view of an event that actually occurred in a very different manner. The case study that stood out the most to me regarding fabrication was the Stephen Glass case. Glass fabricated all these stories, created fake sources and even made fake notes to portray events that never happened. He tricked his editor and his co-workers. In the world of journalism there comes times where the relationship between a journalist and an editor is crucial because the editor is always supposed to have your back as long as that editor can trust the journalist. Once a journalist fabricates a story and breaks the trust, the fall isn’t just on the journalist, its on the whole organization they work for. It makes that place not credible and will lose readers and viewership.
As a whole, this class has taught me to always do my work on my own. Just need to invest the time to research and do it myself and not procrastinate. I feel like procrastination and poor time management lead to all the amounted pressure on a journalist causing them to lie and fabricate stories in order to meet a deadline.