ee055313@ohio.edu
Ethics to journalists is pretty much very comparable to someone's dignity. It's something that you need to have so people can respect you. An ethic is a moral principle that governs a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity. Journalists everyday are always faced with the hard decisions of trying to be ethical all the time, but sometimes it's hard.
When a journalist is struggling with making tough calls they can refer to the SPJ code. The SPJ code are a set of guidelines and principles that journalist do their best to abide by for journalistic practices. The SPJ code includes seeking truth and reporting about it, minimizing harm, acting independently, and lastly being accountable.
via richwaterman.com
So what do you do as a journalist?
Choose the easy path or the hard path? Journalist everyday have to figure out what is best ethically. A decision could be getting more hits on your website or newspaper or trying to be an ethical journalist and doing the right thing.
This is just a general agreed upon way to look at ethics as a journalist, but it can vary between journalists slightly. As a journalist myself I can say that when I am trying to report a story I want to make sure that the story is legitimate first and foremost. I do not want to have a reputation of publishing fake news. Especially in this era where fake news spreads like wildfire and people believe it. Secondly I need to think, is the story I am about to publish going to hurt or offend anyone? If it does, I do not want to anger any possible readers. Overall just figuring out what the overall impact will save you as a journalism. Just think of when your mom or dad always told you to not speak if you don't have anything good to say.
What to avoid and be careful with nowadays as a journalist
Major issues journalist face with ethics in today's media is dealing with viral media pictures, verifying stories , and lastly how to report on hate speech. When it comes to issues like these it is important to be careful. You would not want to be discredited as a journalist or discredit the company you work under. Certain things you should go over would be to definitely look into how it could possibly harm the public from the SPJ code. Specifically with hate speech ask yourself is it deliberately trying to cause people harm and if it is you as a journalist are helping spread it. This could be very bad.
Now when it comes to pictures and posting them make sure they are not doctored or altered by photoshop. Doing more research and finding the source of the original picture will help you post real things. This can definitely cause harm to your audience. Ask yourself "what if someones believes this
photo, what would happen if they did?"
via astroinquiry.com
If a viewer saw this photo and you published this on your site saying that it was real the audience member could have been potentially making a trip to New York and cancelled it because they think New York is under water.
Lastly just do what feels right, but make sure you ask people around you and check your SPJ code as always to go over everything.
No comments:
Post a Comment