Situation Definition —
Ken Dilanian, an NBC News correspondent for national security and intelligence, spoke to students at Penn State about his recent experiences in journalism. Delianian touched upon difficulties in getting information, Washington D.C., and the controversy surrounding President Trump in the recent whistleblower discovery. All of his accounts, at some level, revealed the ethical obstacles that face journalists when obtaining and distributing news in a meaningful way. One student asked how Dilanian manages to differentiate the importance of certain news, in which he quipped that Trump really makes it difficult. In times more turbulent than ever, ethics in journalism become challenged.
With the whistleblower case being a product of leaked information in the CIA, Dilanian made it a point of how important getting this information was. Sensitive information can lead to criminal charges. As a journalist, Dilanian knows full well the consequences he creates by simply listening to someone. However, information like this has been important in determining the character of a standing President. These two ethical issues within journalism seem at odds but is instrumental in the function of journalists. As a result, the two ethical concerns is the importance of journalists in reporting important information and extracting sensitive information.
Analysis —
Journalists are important in keeping the government and officials in check as a service to the public. But conflicts occur when the threat of leaking government information can result in felony charges or other indirect consequences in dealing with sensitive government property. In Gabriella Coleman’s article, “How has the fight for anonymity and privacy advanced since Snowden’s whistleblowing,” she tackles how, albeit a much more extreme case, sensitive information from the government can be used against the needs of the public. She writes that Snowden’s “detailed reportage based on the documents furnished the public with a level of concrete details about the government’s frighteningly robust capacities and capabilities for surveillance – and its willingness to illegally and legally exploit the corporate collection of data for its own ends” (Coleman 2019). These leaks have led Snowden to be charged with felony acts of espionage and theft of government property. Consequently, it is a journalist’s ethical duty to obtain information for the best of the public regardless of the legal implications of extreme cases.
Journalists have made waves in undermining corruption and revealing wrongdoings in any regard, not just limited to the government. A clear distinction between acting ethical and what the government claims should be made. As a result, it is often the ethical duty to go against wrongdoings in light of punishment, which is especially apparent in confidential sources. Journalists have had a history being the cat that curiosity wants to kill. However, journalists have been resilient making it a fact that it is the ethical duty to report as a journalist in the face of repercussions. In an article discussing the history of how journalists obtained their right to dutifully report, Patrick C. File writes that “journalists argued that forcing them to renege on promises of confidentiality degraded their professional obligations to their sources and the public. Instead, by favoring journalists’ professional identity as trustworthy and principled protectors of their sources’ identities, the law thereby could acknowledge journalists’ role as a protector of the public interest against political and social wrongdoers” (File 2019). Dealing with the confidentiality of sources has led to controversial topics that have secured the rights for journalists to continue to report ethically.
Conclusion —
Deilanian spoke on a huge number of topics that deal with ethics. The entire role of the journalists is in itself, an ethical duty. With the coming of the internet age, anyone can be a journalist. However, dealing with sensitive issues like the government and sources can fall short without careful consideration. Since the preservation of journalism relies on ethics-based reporting, it should be held to a high degree in all journalists.
References —
File, P. C. (2019). Journalism, Public, Policy: An Institutional View of the Press’s Legal
Discourse at the End of the 19th Century. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly,
96(3), 830–847. https://doi-org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1177/1077699019827005
Coleman, G. (2019). How has the fight for anonymity and privacy advanced since Snowden’s
whistle-blowing? Media, Culture & Society, 41(4), 565–571.
https://doi-org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1177/0163443719843867