Ethical and Legal Issues in Magazines

In today’s day and age, mass media has completely changed the way in which we consume news. The truthfulness of the millions of blogs and web pages makes it hard to trust what is true and what is not. Newspapers are often an overlooked form of news, which is surprising considering that it is a accurate, curated source of media. What sets newspapers apart from all the countless blogs and web pages is the set of ethics that the reporters and editors are required to follow. In State of Play Cal McCaffrey, a reporter for the Washington Globe, did not act in accordance to the code of ethics. McCaffrey knowingly broke the law whilst trespassing, clearly knew McCaffrey had a conflict of interest, and unethically recorded someone while falsely promising anonymity.

The job of a journalist has always been highly scrutinized. For years, the question of what and how a journalist should deliver information has been analyzed. However, despite the many theories, it has always been a clear consensus that journalists have an obligation to truth above all. However, there are many cases where a journalist may not know how far to go in order to deliver that truth. Of course, a journalist must always operate within legal limits, however, again some cases have blurred lines. A case that demonstrates these blurred lines between the legal and illegal, as well as the need to deliver truth, is a case between the Rolling Stone and their use of illegal music links.

In the case of the New Republic, they were lucky that Stephen Glass’ unethical behavior was exposed or else the magazine could have suffered a great deal more than they already did having to admit that most of his articles were fabricated. Unethical journalism as a whole causes society to feel as if they can trust no one, which then leads people to feel as if they need to do their own research in order to obtain the truth. Falsifying information only further disrupts the trust between the media and society.

A code of ethics highlights the responsibility and accountability standards of each and every employee within the organization. These codes are also motivating factors that guide the employees’ behavior, set the standard regarding ethical conduct, and build an organizations trustworthiness within

In order to apply the aforementioned questions to this case, we must first examine it through the lens of the SPJ Code of Ethics, and determine where it violates—or abides by—it’s four tenants. The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) lays out the four rules a journalist must follow in order to act ethically: seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent (“SPJ Code of

I took an interest into magazine writing very recently as I started consuming more and more print media because I enjoyed the freedom magazines have over newspaper. Magazines are allowed more creative and in depth stories, compared to newspapers, simply because of a more open format as well as the different role each serves. While newspapers are focused on just simply the facts and proceedings of the day, magazines have the freedom to interject more opinions and commentary into their pieces serving more as entertainment with visual modules. Being deliberate helps magazines stay edgy while not going off the deep end, for oftentimes magazines are trying to catch eyes and stand out but in the process cross the line of journalistic professionalism, like recently with the controversial Boston bombing cover which glamorized an at-the-time alleged killer. By having someone who can step back and think things over before making a mistake is a valuable

Magazines have implicitly and explicitly been influencing humans for decades. They are continually more involved in the media, however the market is highly competitive. It is extremely important for magazines to maintain the readers’ interest and loyalty therefore they must excel in its appearance and content. Helen Brown created the Cosmopolitan magazine in 1965. It holds a spot as one of the most successful women’s magazines of all time, and proceeds to be the number one selling monthly magazine. (Ouellette, 360, 2005).

The fact that a person would use being published in a magazine to gain a reader’s trust is very irresponsible and it actually hurts their credibility. Magazines are not viewed as an academic source and for this reason most professors do not allow magazines to be a source for their students when writing academic papers. If the article had been published in a more serious book or setting, then the reader would trust the content a lot more rather than being skeptical of the content. Authors can even state ‘facts’ that are not necessarily the whole truth in order to gain the reader's trust which is why logos can be

A great deal of interest of the countless allegations of bias has been a heated topic today in the dominant media. A variety of watchdog groups have generated over the years to attempt to find the facts behind bias facts, accuracy, fairness and balance. It is extremely important in journalism to always be accurate, fair, and have a consistent balance. If an editor falls into the biases and does not not follow the previous three essential qualities stated, one may get himself or herself into serious legal trouble and/or possibly let go from his or her job.

A front-page article is devoted to a flawed story about a campus rape in the journal Rolling Stone, exposed in the leading academic journal of media critique. So severe is this departure from journalistic integrity that it is also the subject of the lead story in the business section, with a full inside page devoted to the continuation of the two reports. The shocked reports refer to several past crimes of the press: a few cases of fabrication, quickly exposed, and cases of plagiarism (“too numerous to list”). The specific crime of Rolling Stone is “lack of skepticism,” which is “in many ways the most insidious” of the three categories.

Code of Ethics is a written set of rules issued by an organization to its employees and administration to aid them provide treatment in accordance with its prime values and ethical standards.

The duty of journalists is to tell the truth. Journalism means you go back to the actual facts, you look at the documents, you discover what the record is, and you report it that way. — Chomsky 2008

D) Relevant ethical codes that can be applied to the articles (please be sure which code of ethics you are citing) and how you would apply such code(s).

When it comes to having a Code of Ethics, each one is different depending on the field or profession that one is going into. Some are long to get the point across and to cover everything, others are short because there is not much to say about the field. When it comes to the National Press Photographers Association, their Code of Ethics, is not that long nor that short. It get’s straight to the point and simple and easy to understand.

The Code of Ethics “offers a set of values, principles and standards to guide decision making and conduct when ethical issue arise…specific applications of the Code must take into account the context in which it is