Tracy Brewer
Tb289493@ohio.edu
Many believe that common sense is innate. People either have it or they do not. Can ethics be placed in the same
category? Or is being ethical something
that we are only taught? Is it more than
knowing right from wrong? And how is
today’s ethics different than our parent’s generation?
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| Courtesy of picturequotes.com |
In our reading it’s mentioned “every generation creates its
own journalism.” I bet our parents didn’t
see these creations coming! “Blogging,” “tweeting,”
“facebooking,” “snapchatting” and the list continues to grow almost every
day. The way we consume the news is fast
and furious. Once upon a time you watched television for the news and those offering it were trusted and reliable. What happened to that trust? What causes someone with so much credibility
to decide to fabricate or embellish a situation? Is it the pressure to “go viral?” Is there so much competition with the noise
of other “journalists” that you need to differentiate yourself by stretching
what happens to you in certain circumstances?
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| Courtesy of The Huffington Post - A favorite news source for me. |
We assume that Brian Williams had a class similar to this, when he was
in college. We can also assume he knew
the consequences he would face with adding a bit more drama to his
recollection, right? Shouldn’t he have
been taught this? Or maybe we feel he
was one of those with common sense and he would just know right from wrong.
Changing gears from being the go-to source for news and competing with 140
character tweets that run 24/7 can be a bit …threatening.
Bloggers and Vloggers have changed the landscape of
journalism. No longer do you have to
work for a company to have a valid voice.
People have created their own way.
People have defined themselves, marketed their own niche and gained HUGE
followers. Some have been taught. Others have an organic charm that helps their
message attract followers. Then there is
a mixture of the two. So where do their “ethics”
come from? How do they know how to “act”
when everyone is watching them or hanging on their every word? I found an interesting video about ethics in
blogging by an international blogger.
To
hear how (almost every) blogger begins by sharing personal accounts as a way to
just find some individuality… to growing that voice into an actual company, is
amazing. One way that pepper.ph sustains
ethics is through transparency.
Attempting to let the audience know if a post is sponsored is a great
way to keep the trust up.
But what if your blog grew from controversy? What if everyone or everything you spoke
about wanted to sue you for giving your opinion? As Perez Hilton found out when he began his unique blog, he was known as a Hollywood troublemaker when
he started.
Everyone wanted to press
charges of his use of their “photos” as he shared them on his blog. Little by little, these people realized the
old adage “there is no bad publicity” and the attention they grew from his
opinions started to give him a valid (as much as it can be in Hollywood)
voice. So, whose ethics changed? Was it Perez’s ethics? Was it the celebrities? How about the readers and followers of his
messages? Was what he did just breaking
a new mold and the internet realized that this was a new norm. This method was a new “gossip mag” format
that they just needed to accept? More
and more celebrities are taking the shock out of it and just posting such “scandal”
themselves (Hello, Kardashians) to get the attention first.
So without the filters, the people deciding what we follow,
watch or find “newsworthy” how do you define ethics in journalism. Because, how
do you define journalism? We can’t blame
the networks when we’re offended anymore because we’re going to see it or hear
about it on social media. If you can’t
figure out how to use social media correctly, then how you can blame it when it
shows you something unethical. I hear
time and time again people are made at something that comes up on their Facebook
wall. Well if you knew how to manage
your wall, follow, list, categorize and operate all of the functions available
to you, then maybe those “unethical” images/videos/posts would not appear. You can’t complain about a FREE social media
service and then turn around and gripe about it when you’re not using it
correctly! Take a class, read a
tutorial, ask a friend…but don’t rant about how it operates when you’re not
operating correctly.
People have almost limitless choices for journalism today.
Traditional mediums are still around (maybe temporarily…it’s yet to be the end
of the newspaper) and ethics in all mediums are still very important. But the way ethics is defined has also
changed. People are more “tolerant” (for
lack of a better word) towards what is acceptable because we want to KNOW
everything immediately. We will follow a
story and repost it ourselves, without checking facts. We want to be the FIRST
one to share it. Heck, we’ll just go
check snopes.com later to see if it was a “real” story. So has our requirement for ethics
softened? Are we going to tune into
MSNBC and watch Brian Williams for the news or to see how he handles being back
on the air? How does our attitude towards journalism define our own ethics as a
consumer of media? Maybe that’s the
better question to ask since we are truly in control of our journalistic
behavior.
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