Thoughts on the readings

The Potter Box:

I have studied this ethical decision making model in other classes and for the most part I find it rather unhelpful. The box has the following steps:

1) Appraising the situation
2) Identifying values
3) Appealing to ethical principles
4) Choosing loyalties

It is very straight forward. The process in journalism decision making is so similar to decision making in other areas of our lives. We asses our options, think about what others would want us to do, and pull from past experiences. All of this goes into making our decision.

While ethical decisions can be discussed, teaching how to make these decisions is difficult. So much of it is based on personality, upbringing and other subjective factors. Still, I do believe that it is important to discuss the tough ethical decisions that journalists are bound to face in their career in hopes of starting the mental dialogue before the issue comes up.

Freebies -

For the most part I believe that freebies can get in the way of journalistic objectivity. I think it tarnishes journalistic integrity and causes readers to question true motive in stories. I like the Chicago Tribune's take on freebies: reporter can accept nothing over the value of a keychain. No reporter is going to sway the direction of a story over a ballpoint pen, notepad or keychain. I think one acceptable type of freebie would be tickets to an event which the paper plans on covering. Entertainment writers are in this position every day. From the perspective of a news writer, I see this as no different than accepting a press pass to a major speech or convention.

Advertising -

If the journalism world were perfect, advertising would have no say in what was printed.

period.

I really hate the idea of advertisers pushing for stories that highlight specific industries. It ties into the issue of impartiality and objectivity. Still, it is a reality in today's newsrooms. I think that all journalists can try to do is remain as separate as possible. By deciding early on that you will never change the direction of a story or publish something based off of advertising and not news value, it will be come easier to make these decisions when they come up.

My verdict - I think that the most important thing a young journalist can do to prepare themselves for making ethical decisions is to practice. Reading what other writers have decided in tough situations and assessing what you would have done in the same place will lead to a higher level of thought. While you will never be able to entertain every possible ethical dilemma, simply considering major issues will help tune your instincts toward ethical decisions.



LOVE IT

"At their best, the newspapers’ online videos are, minute for minute, superior to TV news. As I write, CNN is airing a live press conference by Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer and a loop of Smith vamping, while a significant breaking news story—the U.S. claim that Muqtada al-Sadr has left Iraq for Iran—is running in tiny type across the bottom of the screen. Given the dumb-and-dumber choices, I can easily imagine newspapers’ Web-video portals becoming the TV-journalism destinations of choice for smart people—that is, in the 21st century, the dominant nineteenth-century journalistic institution, newspapers, might beat the dominant twentieth-century institution, TV, at the premium part of its own game."
- http://nymag.com/news/imperialcity/28152/

My main problem with television news is that in my mind, it has a tendency to become watered down. At very little fault of the broadcast journalist, 24 hour news stations end up running the same stories continuously, rarely adding new information. I sympathies. Really - it must be tough to be a broadcast journalist for CNN. But seriously - sometimes it gets ridiculous.

Just this weekend when flying back to Houston to Ithaca and had a 2 hour layover in the Newark airport. I was watching the breaking news of the fires in California. In 2 hours no new news was reported. They interviewed people who had the same things to say, repeated footage of the same houses being burned, and really annoyed me in the process. It is not to say that there is no value in this kind of news. Broadcast can get out breaking news in a way that print just can not. But I think that overall print journalism is able to offer a more comprehensive view of an issue. With more time to contact valid sources and check new leads, print journalism offers an all-in-one approach.

And as the quote about demonstrates - this tendency is spreading to newspapers websites and online media. Television-like video clips and packages put up on newspapers websites seem to me to be more comprehensive than television alone. Also, with easy searching on websites multimedia pages and toolbars, it is very easy to navigate to specific issues.


Covering a Catastrophe

I think that this article really speaks to one of the main tenants of journalism: personal stories. Localizing major issues through individual stories is one of the most effective journalism tools (in my opinion.) For major national catastrophes, the story can reach a new level of import for people across the country when individual stories are highlighted.