Is Getting the Truth Ever More Important than Your Ethics?

Katie Boyer
kb213806@ohio.edu

As new journalists, we are all slowly beginning to develop our personal codes of ethics. After reading Deborah Potter’s article “How the Media Treated Me,” I wonder how journalists' ethics come into play in times of tragedy.

I mean, in day to day journalism, our biggest ethical dilemmas are probably as minor as whether or not we should put in the details of the car accident that killed Mr. Smith. But what about when the story is Hurricane Katrina? Do we print the graphic pictures of bodies on the side of the street? Or the people fighting in the Dome? What is too far? What is not enough? What needs to be printed or

The more I think about it, the more unclear it seems to be. As a journalist, I want to make a good impression on my colleagues as well as my sources. I think that being aggressive is sometimes necessary, but not when it begins to demote your professionalism. One bad interview could blow up into a professional meltdown. One source is upset when a journalist treats them disrespectfully, so he or she goes to another station to not only give the story, but also to criticize the journalist.

So once again, I am back at square one. But in Potter’s article, I was able to look at different experiences of those affected by tragedies and their experiences with the media. I believe there is a fine line between getting the story ethically and intrusion.

As a journalist, I think it is important to cover the story, but as an individual, I would want my own time to grieve before being bombarded by the media. I am slowly learning to combine both to find my own line in the sand.

We are journalists, not animals, and I think that sometimes the public looks only at the bad; the media that posed as friends of the family when Shannon Wright was killed in the shootings in Arkansas or the journalists who posed as Amish people to get into the funerals of the girls killed in the schoolhouse shootings.

I believe that there comes a time in this profession that we have to step back and ask if our work is really journalistic, or just downright paparazzi-like. Is the story worth losing the respect of an entire community? Can the story be told without losing one’s dignity to get that extra piece of the truth?

I guess that is where I stand right now. I believe that the truth is important, but if getting the “whole story” means not standing true to my own personal code of ethics, then it's not really that important. My code is still a work in progress, but the more real life stories that I read, the more I think about what I would do. It is impossible to please everyone in journalism, but I am the one who has to sleep with myself at night, so I must feel comfortable with my work. I suppose that is where the line must be.