The Ethical Responsibilities Of Journalists

In 2011, New York Times executive editor, Bill Keller, wrote an article entitled, “The Twitter Trap” in which he uses the social media site to discuss its’ impact on society, and the negative ramifications. The article attempts to illustrate the potential dangers of social media on relationships, the functioning of the brain, as well as the education and intelligence of current and future generations. He claims that social media can be dangerous because “innovation comes at a price” and Keller’s concern is that “the price is a piece of ourselves”, which becomes the basis of his argument throughout the article (Keller). Keller’s is directing his article, and consequently his argument towards the New York Times readership, and even more specifically those who are parents of children on social media, as well as general Twitter and social media users.

The 1987 film Broadcast News focuses on the inner workings of a broadcast news department as it shows various friendship and romantic relationships within the workplace. By showing the personal lives as well as professional performances of broadcast reporters in this fictional drama, the film delves into a few key ethical dilemmas. The main characters are Jane Craig, a producer, Aaron Altman, a broadcast reporter, and Tom Grunick, a newcomer to the news reporting profession. Perhaps one of the ethical issue most pivotal to the plot is when Tom decides to stage a shot of him crying in order to splice it in as a reaction to an emotional story told by one of his interviewees in a story he was running about “date rape”. Although doing so compromises

Journalism and technology go together especially in our modern-day society. Ethics is a guideline that journalists uphold their obligation to the public and their profession to report the truth. Unfortunately, in this digital age, we have the resource that can verify one’s original work but also to plagiarize. Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information. Journalists should also test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error (“Society of Professional Journalists: Code of Ethics”, 1996). In this paper I will discuss what role did digital technology play in the Jayson Blair scandal, how can it be regulated, and what guidelines can be put in place to prevent future incidents.

In journalism, an ethical dilemma is a complex issue or situation that often involves an emotional and psychological conflict between moral obligations and duties, in which to obey one would transgress the other. Within the media there are many stories that can be deemed an ethical dilemma; some more so than others. One of the most recent and prominent ethical dilemmas was the worldwide coverage surrounding the shooting of two American WBDJ journalists, Alison Parker and Adam Ward. Despite the fact that the shooter filmed the ordeal clearly showing the two slain journalists being shot, news outlets had picked it up and ran with the story, which ultimately went viral in minutes. This essay will analyse and thoroughly examine the reporting

Moving aside from the question of whether technology changes the view on ethics in journalism, it’s important to look on the opposite side of the spectrum—the court itself. Jonathan Entin does just that in his article Being the Government Means (Almost) Never Having to Say You’re Sorry. Entin puts a different (and slightly more unknown) perspective on how the law feels about the Sheppard V. Maxwell case by giving insight on the prosecutor’s point of view. Entin explains in detail, “The prosecutor’s theory of the case was straightforward: Sam Sheppard,… whose wife was frustrated by his infidelity, argued with Marilyn in their bedroom, beat her to death… and invented a tale of a bushy-haired intruder who slugged him unconscious… After killing his wife, Sam called his brother Steve to help him fix up

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.

Being trusted by millions of people is more than an honor or privilege, but rather it is a power of immense impact. It is a force that shapes the nation, for better or worse. As much good a journalism can create, it also used to deceive the masses and incite unrest. Recently, an article circle Facebook sites. The title was FBI Agent Found Dead in a Murder Suicide. It was published in an apparently-legitimate website. Truth is, it was a fake article published in a website meant to confuse readers. Many similar websites and articles had been created by the author Jestin Coler. At first, his motivations were heroic, trying to highlight the “failed” American government. During the 2016 elections, fake news about the candidates went rampant. Coler had 20 to 25 writers working for him publishing article after article of slander and propaganda for either party. Some of the articles published reached 1.5 million views in just ten days. Coler makes anywhere from $10 thousand to $30 thousand every month from ad revenue of people who visit his fake news sites. Despite his initial good intentions, Coler willingly deceived readers into believing outlandish claims simply because it was published in a “news

In the article, “When Rape Goes Viral,” Ann Friedman, a columnist for New York magazine’s website and the Columbia Journalism Review, argues that in this time period that sexual assaults are becoming more aware of and tackled due to social media. People are viewing these assaults by videos, picture, and postings from different social media pages, claims Friedman. Friedman reports that the postings of these pictures and videos have helped in multiple cases of sexual assaults. If there were no photos or videos of evidence from the cases then some of the convictions that have been made throughout time might not have ever happened, argues Friedman. She insists that the post with the most attention leave the victims in traumatic circumstances that

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

Technology is changing the world in a fast pace. This is evident most especially in social networks. Due to the widespread and growing use of these new social media, especially social networking sites such as Facebook, researchers began to study its ethical implications.

Gatekeeping is “controlling access to goods, services, or information, usually applied by individuals or groups in hierarchical organizations. ” (CSA). As it applies to media, gatekeeping refers to the method in which information is filtered for distribution, this can be done through the internet, print or broadcasting. Due to the power that gatekeepers wield in controlling what we as the public read, hear or see, there are many ethical concerns to be considered and liberties to be safeguarded.

The media and the public have had a relationship that has existed for centuries. Through the media, people become aware of events and issues occurring around them. As a result, they make educated decisions. Therefore, the media serve as witnesses of the events happening within our societies and then report them to us. That said, could journalism have a significant political impact in our societies? It is through the media that governments and their citizens communicate. For instance, people communicate by protesting and voting, governments respond by amending the issues affecting the public. It is also through the media that potential political leaders gain recognition. Therefore, the answer is yes, because, journalism causes the spread

In a contemporary society, the role of journalism is a varied one that covers many different aspects of people’s lives. As more and more outlets spring up around the world, many more stories are able to be covered by different outlets, and this means that journalism takes on a more and more important role in a contemporary society. Much of our lives centre on political and social happenings, and journalistic outlets are the public’s way of finding all the information on these event. Journalism also provides us with a way of finding out which of these stories are important and deserve our attention, and which stories can be ignored. The important role of journalism can be well observed in the recent coverage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) in both New Zealand and around the world. This is a ground breaking economic deal, and holds a great deal of importance for the 800 million citizens of the countries involved, as well as the rest of the world. With worldwide coverage of this deal, it is inevitable that different types of reporting occurs, and that different outlets will provide different accounts. With so many different journalism outlets around the world and locally, many have to have a way of standing out from the crowd. This means that some extremely different coverage of very similar stories can occur. However it can also simply be down to different ownership, differing political views, and different socio-economic environments. Two outlets with

To wholly have a grasp on how this new founded approach to journalism has changed alongside technology—as well as understanding the dangers such openness brings forth—one has to understand what exactly those changes are. Primarily, those that are writing for the sake of offering information have, whether willingly or not, fed into the usage of social media as it has become a centralized method of distribution that is relatively inescapable with the current times. As such those framing the news for the masses find an authentic avenue to stay in contact via social media that has benefits ranging from, “its extraordinary newsgathering potential; its potential as a new tool to engage the audience; and as a way of distributing our news” (Eltringham, 2012), all of which are deeply different from the presentation of reporting that occurred during earlier eras. Days of strongly structured instances of journalism that could not travel with such speed have been replaced as, “social media has trashed many of the foundations on