Was his jacket blue or red?

by Maren Machles
mm423611@ohio.edu

To me, being transparent is an ethical code that is just as important as any other, and while Mr. Ward makes a point in his article, “Why Hyping Transparency Distorts Journalism Ethics” that we should not hold the code to a higher standard than others, I still believe that being transparent is vital and publishing such an article could send the wrong message to some people. It is important as journalists to be transparent and use transparency in its best practice. An example of this would be speaking with a source that wishes to remain anonymous. Yes, you are not being transparent with the public, however, you are being transparent with the source in your promise not to release their information.

Keeping an honesty code is vital to being a journalist. You have to give the public all the information. I don’t see anything wrong with a media source saying that they are publishing biased, funded information -- as long as they make it clear and don’t deceive the reader. Otherwise that is not being 100% transparent. As a result, they will lose readership and then we eliminate one more biased outlet from the media.

Now, this is not to say that journalists must give their opinion about every story they cover. I believe that, it is crucial to deliver all aspects of the story as unbiasedly as possible. It is our job as journalists to merely recount a story and give as much context as possible. It is not our job to provide commentary, because we are not specialists on anything we cover. We are not involved in the stories we cover and if we are, than it is a conflict of interest. If you want to provide transparency about that conflict of interest and still cover it, that is fine, but you are no longer a news journalist, you are an opinion columnists. The public is requesting that journalists be held accountable for their opinion flooding into the information they deliver. You must make transparent your interest in the story so people do not go to you for the purest form of the story.  

With this, every story is different. There are some that are as simple as the man walking into the store at 10:02 p.m. and wore a blue jacket and there are others where the man walked in at 10:02 p.m. and two minutes later the police arrive due to a call about a gunshot. What led to the gunshot? Whose gun was it? Why did it happen? Was his jacket blue or red? Stories are muddied by a lot of misinformation and miscommunication. But it is our job to find out the real information and we can do that without revealing how we feel about the situation. And if you want to reveal how you feel about the situation, then you need to be transparent and let the public know, “This is not news, this is my opinion.”