Mother Jones: Journalist Analysis

The “Code of Ethics”, which was published by the Society of Professional Journalists in 2014, gives specific rules that all journalists are supposed to follow in order to have an unbiased and honest opinion on whatever they are writing about. In Sarah Koenig’s “Serial” podcast, which was also published in 2014, she focuses on Adnan Syed who was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999. But was Koenig being ethical and giving her audience an unbiased opinion? There has been a debate that Koenig is unethical because of multiple occasions throughout her podcast, and she has been criticized in the past for being biased. Koenig shows that she is unethical because there are many important rules that she has broken such as the stereotyping

A June 2016 report by Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer, who worked as a prison guard for four months to research his article, says that one fifth of prison inmates have been physically assaulted by another prisoner or a guard. Between 3% and 9% of male inmates say they have been sexually assaulted behind bars suggesting that up to 180,000 current inmates may have been sexually assaulted of which only 8,800 cases have been officially reported. Women, who form 7% of the total prison population, have higher figures for sexual victimization. Some 22% of all cases of inmate-on-inmate and 33% of staff-on-inmate sexual assaults are on women (Bauer, 2016).

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.

It is a tough decision to run an article or not when it comes to an ethical issue. Magazines writers face dilemmas. On one hand they are “[…] the public

In Cyra McFaddin’s article published in the New York Times titled “In Defense of Gender,” she asserts that male pronouns should not be eliminated from written and spoken English works. McFaddin uses satire in an attempt to make readers sympathetic to a writer’s problem of trying to be nondiscriminatory by using gender-neutral language. Cyra McFaddin’s goal is to convince readers that gender neutral language won’t solve any problems or advance feminist ideas because she believes some take it to the extreme. She also thinks that using slashes and the term person makes the English language sound cumbersome and will never please everyone. I disagree with McFaddin. She is quick to criticize the progress that others are attempting to make without offering a solution to the gender neutral language that she so despises. I believe that any progress forward is worthwhile, and accuracy is paramount. Ultimately, everyone just wants to be included in the default. While McFaddin attempts to use humor to cover her complaints of how bland or distracting writing seems when gender-neutral language is used, and how it doesn’t aid in the development of relationships when used; inclusion of everyone is much more valuable and worthwhile.

This memo concentrates on whether a suicide victim’s name and story should be published in a student newspaper. It concerns sensitive details of a suicide in an area where mental health issues are abundant: a college campus. Even today, it is still taboo to discuss mental disorders and depression while newspapers either fully disclose or blanket suicides in the news. In Moral Reasoning for Journalists, Steve Knowlton and Bill Reader write that in situations involving tragedy and suffering, “the public’s need to know is implicit” and I agree with this. However, there are many aspects of this situation that make accurate truth-telling without ethical violation possible. On the recommendation of Steve Knowlton and Bill Reader’s passage on “Verification and Attribution” as well as “Avoid Deception” I would not write the story, not because it lacks importance, human impact or proximity, but because of the complicated tangle of sources and lack of information.

In the film “Page One: Inside The New York Times” it mainly talks about that people have changed the way they receive information. People are relying more towards digital media to receive their daily news around the world. Most people do not question everything that is posted on the web. Carr wrote an article called “Journalism, Even When It’s Tilted” that mainly focuses on journalism and activisms. He describes that an activist is a person who just wants to seek information and fight for a certain cause. While a journalist is a person who wants to seek the truth in depth and deliver the truth to the entire world.

Many critics reject the notion of objectivity on the grounds that no person can be objective because we have biases and a variety of conflicts that we bring to our jobs. Mitchell Stephens, author of Beyond News: The Future of Journalism offers an argument against objectivity. Stephens states that objectivity is impossible because as much as one may try to disappear from the work, there is a kind of meditation that takes place in journalism no matter what, (117). By selecting who to interview or which side of a complex political dispute to air, journalists are evaluating and judging, and not being “perfectly neutral,” (117). According to Stephens, there are many problems with the effort to balance and see no right or wrong when writing a story. One of these problems is that traditional objective coverage flattens the understanding of politics. Furthermore, an equally balanced piece is too willing to leave it there, making it “lazy and relieves journalists of any responsibility for determining whether he or she might be in error,” (122). Objectivity is also a demanding ideal and the rules are routinely broken by profit-seeking news organizations. Even if it is possible, it is undesirable because it forces writers to use restricted formats and fails to provide readers with analysis and interpretation. Stephens states that “traditional objectivity not only filters what journalists can say but filters the view of the work they present,” (126). Thus, traditional objectivity and

The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists is organized around fourth principles: to seek the truth and report it; to minimize harm; to act independently, and to be accountable. Each of them considers a list of normative guidelines to orient the ethical decision-making process within a newsroom. In any case, the SPS’ orientations are framed by a utilitarian approach to ethics: Due to the voluntary character of the code, the Code attempts to advising more than requiring and, in that sense, the recommended procedures and activities in which journalists should engage to accomplish an ethical work are oriented to journalists as individuals instead of a collective. In fact, and just as an example, the advices to accomplish journalistic independence include avoiding all kinds of membership, because it could to “damage credibility” (p. 10). So, it is up to each journalist to act correctly in order to achieve an ethical performance. In that frame, if one by one, journalists do their job ethically, the society would enjoy an ethical journalism as a whole.

Everybody has a secret or specific information that they do not want made into public knowledge. Normally this is not a problem as people can keep their own secrets and only tell those they can trust. But when the media gets involved, it becomes a different story. When a reporter gains shocking, interesting, or important information, the first thought many have is “this would make a great story!” So many people become numb to the news as there are always influxes of stories flowing in, but one does not always realize that a majority of what we read is actually occurring in someone else’s life. Journalists have the ability to bring light to a controversial issue or introduce a topic that needs to be talked out, but sometimes, journalists take it too far. It is really easy to take the human out of the story and solely report the sparkling secrets for everyone to hear without realizing that bringing these secrets to light could ruin someone’s life.

It seems like every day, I’m reading yet another article about how BuzzFeed’s rise signals the end of journalism as we know it, plunging us into an era where mindless drones, void of any journalistic integrity, occupy a barren digital landscape stripped of anything of substance, but filled with a barrage of listicles and personality quizzes.

How the journalism industry as a whole is being impacted by the ethical lapses of photojournalism?

In addition, the media is in an especially complex situation regarding the current concept of privacy regarding the proper use of technology and due to the numerous ethical issues, that arise from sensationalist media practices. First, the invasion of privacy can be justified by uncovering vital information that serves public interest to be considered ethical journalistic practice (Plaisance, 2014, p. 187). However, while there is less ethical merit in providing the public with the information it “wants” to know, it is justifiable under business matters if it is not malicious or extremely invasive. It is a journalist’s duty to reveal the truth to the public and keep them informed, but many would consider it unethical

All over the world, the news play an important role in the daily lives of everybody. If not exchanging information on the current issues, then there is the recap of what has transpired. This thus is the critical role played by the news industry collectively known as journalism. All over the world, the media has played a great role in making sure that the masses are up to date with what is happening. All the stakeholders work day and night to ensure the same. Various aspects come into play though when evaluating the news industry deeply. For news to serve their purpose which is to inform the masses, aspects such as truthfulness in the same must be carefully looked at and emphasized. However, due to the various changes witnessed in the

The topic I chose to explore more in depth with is the issue of media and the ethics behind responsible news coverage. I wanted to examine the guidelines of media reporting as well as if proper aspects of responsibility, morality, and privacy is taking place when the news instantly reports on different public issues, crimes, and incidents around the country. For example, your child is at school when a gunman invades and openly shoots many other children and teachers in the building. It feels like switch, within minutes of the event even occurring pictures are shown on the TV of a classroom maybe even your own child and her class walking out of the building in fear, that night it’s on the front page of the newspaper and you had no idea. Is this acceptable? Are there any rules or say in approving this? For me personally I would be angry in that their was no consent for that my child to be shown in that way after something so terrible happening. I wanted to investigate media coverage and events in relation to ethical guidelines of how scenarios should be handled and if they are, in fact, followed in the ways learned in our from our textbook.