Ethical Decision Making – difficult & subjective
Ethical Decision Making – difficult & subjective if left to your “gut,” but there are guidelines to follow, competencies to develop and procedures to use that will help you make the right ethical choices.
Rest assured that you will regularly face ethical issues in your work. Just as interviewing, reporting, writing, and editing are skills you learn, “doing ethics” is also a skill you must learn as a journalist. It is inevitable that you will face ethical situations, and you probably already have.
AP CASE WITH PHOTO OF SLAIN MARINE – SHOW PHOTOS
In journalism, you as the reporter – and the editor – are continually making ethical choices. Just in a process of creating a simple story – when there is controversy or intense subject matter, the ethical choices get harder.
You are choosing a topic (is there a bias in which topic you choose. Do you already know the conclusion you want to make. Do you have an ax to grind)
To avoid my own bias and opinions, I like to start a story with an unbiased open ended question, such as What are the policies and possible issues with smoking on campus?
Smokers need a place to smoke. Campus officials are unfair to smokers. Smoking is stupid so why does the campus have smoking areas.
You choose whom to interview for your story. If all your interviews are only professing one point of view, you are unfairly telling your story. Pat’s article on the budget had a great quote by Kolina about how SGA is a waste of her money. I made Pat go find someone who enjoys SGA events because they are out there and it balances the article.
There are never two sides to a story, not even three sides to a story. 3 sources is a bare bones minimum. To do a good story, you need multiple points of view.
You choose what to include in your story. You can slant a story by how you pick and choose your quotes and copy. Photos are an element of choice too.
You can choose what to lead your story with – keep opinions out. At the Eagle’s Eye, we have a tendency to attend an event and then try to imply whether it was a success or a failure. That is not your job. Your job is to report. The reader can determine if it was successful or not.
You can choose how to play your story – front page, inside page, sensationalize it. Ethical decisions all the time.
A high school coach sits in the basement while his son has a party, which eventually gets busted and MIPs are issued and the coach is arrested for contributing to underage drinking. Where do you run that story in a small town like Incline?
A 16-year-old kid is pulling onto Country Club when a bicyclist riding very fast downhill comes right in front of him. The kid hits the bicyclist and he dies. How do you play this story? The mother of the kid asks you not to run it, the wife of the bicyclist is demanding that you crucify the kid.
So what do you do?
Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has offered an ethical code for journalists.
Seek the truth and report it as fully as possible
Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.
Act independently
Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.
Minimize harm
Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.
Be accountable
Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and one another.
QUIZ ON WEDNESDAY
Everything you decide needs to be filtered by Accuracy and Fairness – the last three are fairness.
Poynter Institute says a journalism think tank and training ground in St. Petersburg, FL says: Your greatest ethical responsibility is to constantly strive for excellence in everything you do. The more competent you are in ethical decision-making, the more confident you will become in your ability to meet the tests you face.
Accuracy – getting it right
Wrong information is a disservice to the readers and hurts your credibility
Fairness means pursuing the truth with both vigor and compassion and reporting information without favoritism, self-interest or prejudice.
True ethical decision-making is about public justification, the ability to explain clearly and fully the process of how and why decisions are made.
Your readers must know that any controversial story or photo is ACCURATE and also understand why it is FAIR, even if they don’t agree.
Sometimes fairness is a perspective, but there are 7 Deadly Sins where your integrity and reputation will be harmed, and where you could get fired. First, we’ll talk about these before we go into how to handle ethical issues that may not have any absolute correct answers.
Deception - lying or misrepresenting yourself to get information
A growing problem in today’s journalism – digital photographs easily manipulated, technology to easedrop, hidden cameras, reading email,
If mission of journalism is truthtelling, is deception ever ok? It harms the public’s perception of journalists.
Is undercover reporting ok?
Are hidden cameras ok?
Is dodge (lightening) and burn (darkening) ok for a photograph? Patrick Schneider of The Charlotte Observer had three awards taken back after he admitted to the practice, NC press photographers assn.. practice used in old darkrooms, but obliterated details,
To justify deception we must be pursuing exceptionally important information. It must be of vital public interest, such as preventing profound harm to individuals or revealing great system failure.
In Spain in Feb. 2012, a court ruled that journalists can no longer use them.
MASQUERADING MORTICIAN CASE STUDY
Conflict of Interest - accepting gifts or favors from sources or promoting social and political causes
ABC pays sources
TV news reporter had to quit job when her husband ran for governor
Jason could not accept Leroy Hardy’s wife’s offer to pay for tripod’s medical bill
Bias - slanting a story by manipulating the facts
Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that the ideological differences in 2012 coverage were “even more pronounced, and is no longer quite a mirror image. MSNBC was more negative in its treatment of Romney than Fox was of Obama, though both stand out significantly from the rest of the media studied.”
Cable news obviously, but Traditional Legacy media
NYT – not biased Forbes – yes biased
En masse, journalists have leaned left for decades. What’s new is they don’t seem to care that everyone realizes it now.
Carr also mentioned the chorus of conservative voices in talk radio and then noted that they “have outdrawn NPR’s morning and evening programs by a wide margin.” But that argument also is a red herring, because neither Rush Limbaugh nor Sean Hannity nor local conservative radio hosts such as Milwaukee‘s Mark Belling present themselves as anything other than apologists for the right. And when viewers tune in Fox News, as well as MSNBC, they know what viewpoints they’re agreeing to subject themselves to.
However, the government-supported, far-left hosts and reporters for NPR never lead with their ideology — and that very pretense, unfortunately, remains enough to lead many less-sophisticated Americans astray. Repeat that omission with the dozens of other influential media mouthpieces for progressivism, and it adds up to a tremendous and almost irresistible collective deception of the body politic.
Fabrication – manufacturing quotes or imaginary sources or writing anything you know to be untrue
Janet Cooke won a Pultizer in 1981 about a 8 yo heroin addict Jimmy – it was made up a composite of several child addicts, but still made up
Theft – obtaining information unlawfully or without a source’s permission
Theft is illegal, hacking emails in Britian, obtaining info legally without a source’s consent, an ethical decision
The News International phone-hacking scandal — dubbed "Hackgate", "Rupertgate", or "Murdochgate" by the press — is an ongoing controversy involving the defunct News of the World and other British newspapers published by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.
In July 2011 Murdoch faced allegations that his companies, including the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty and public citizens. He faces police and government investigations into bribery and corruption by the British government and FBI investigations in the US.[11][12] On 21 July 2012, Murdoch resigned as a director of News International.[13][14]
News Corp – 2nd largest media conglomerate, owns Fox News, Wall Street Journal and 20th century Fox
June 2012 – split into two publicly traded companies – news & entertainment – news WSJ /Fox entertainment, includes Fox News
Burning a Source - deceiving or betraying the confidence of those who provide information for a story
Can only burn that source once, they won’t let you get close to them afterward, a bad reporter can burn a source and the entire newspaper suffers
Plagiarism – passing off someone’s work as your own
Always attribute, NYT Jayson Blair ; so easy on the internet
Plagiarism – ABSOLUTE
Fabrication - ABSOLUTE
Only three people – one was a bad employee, but one had plagiarized and anoher was insanely biased and opinionated in his reporting, frequently burning sources
Which ones are absolute? The others are major red flags, however, that you cannot take lightly.
CASE STUDY CAR IN CANAL
What about situations that don’t have absolutes?
If you have the accuracy foundation, how do you ensure that you are fair?
"Doing ethics" mirrors the reporting process that is at the heart of journalism. In both ethics and reporting, you keep asking good questions to better understand what is going on, to learn key facts, to consider alternative approaches and to move toward an action.
Journalists report and tell important stories. At the same time, journalists make sound ethical decisions. That "doing ethics" competency is a blend of common sense, critical thinking and moral reasoning.
Here are key steps you can take as you practice journalism and make ethical decisions:
*THINK ABOUT IT IN ADVANCE:
The best time to deal with an ethical issue is before it becomes a problem. Anticipate the ethical challenges you might face before you are in a minefield. Which is why we are doing this.
DON’T TRY TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM QUICKLY AND SIMPLY
* Don't try to "solve" an ethical challenge with a simple ˇ˝What should I do?ˇ˝ question. Instead, start your ethical decision-making process
Defining the problem.
Ask a series of questions that helps you
to understand the ethical issue
weigh consequences
consider alternative solutions - try to come up with 3 alternatives, so you aren’t trapped in an either or, right or wrong choice.
Don't let your "gut" drive your decision-making. - not just a moral dilemma, but an intellectual decision. Likewise, don’t let hard and fast rules dictate your decisions.
Make time for making good ethical decisions, even on deadline. The decisions you make carry consequences for you and for other stakeholders.
Avoid "doing" ethics alone. Collaboration produces better decisions. Discuss and debate with colleagues. Listen to and respect other views and competing values. Be willing to make a new ethical decision when facts change giving greater weight to a different ethical principle.
Seek guidance from outside experts - wise individuals who bring expertise and an independent lens to your ethical challenge. Poynter on call 877-639-7817, email Poynter as a student; code of ethics,
Be willing and ready to make your point and justify your thinking. Prepare for that conversation with your boss when you will challenge her/his ethical position. Be clear and be concise. Also, consider writing a short story that you would make public explaining why and how you made your ethical decision. There's a problem if you aren't willing to share your principles and your process with the public.
Use the 10 Questions to ask yourself.
Student press case studies
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