Journalism and Ethics

Wow, I never realized how much journalism was wrapped up in ethics!! Do I print this? Do I not? Will this be reporting the news correctly, or breaking an ethical boundary? The way Jesse Day spoke about it, it seems that journalism involves toeing the line, seeing how close you can get to the ethics line without crossing it. Will that picture of the child with the blown-off head cause trauma to readers and parents, or should we print it to prevent something like it happening again?

We've talked about ethics in my Accounting 433 class this semester. Accounting involves a lot of ethical decisions, but nothing compared to what you face on a daily basis in journalism. That one story you chose to print could forever make you wonder if you did the right thing. You have to constantly check ethical guidelines and make sure you use "attribution" so that if anything comes up with what you said, you attributed it to someone else, so they can take the fall. And the whole concept of sucking in viewers by showing ghastly news stories (I know Jesse said that's not what they do, they just report the news, but come on, we all know gore is popular. Why does everyone slow down as they drive past an accident?) disturbs me. Sure, news that just showed happy stories wouldn't get high ratings, but maybe that's a problem rooted in our culture. I don't know. I'm just glad that I don't have to deal with those kind of situations on a day-to-day basis. I don't know how I would sleep at night...