Mother's Advice Pays Off

Ethan Sands
es700016@ohio.edu

Everyone knows who journalists write for — the people. Without the people, the newspapers would have no business and without the people there would be no one to view online stories. As journalists, however, there are rules that must be followed such as the RTDNA Code of Ethics, SPJ Code of Ethics, NPPA Code of Ethics and the PRSA Code of Ethics.

There is an abundance of rules that journalists must use when telling a story, and it seems as if all these boundaries could lead writers away from having fun while writing or from telling a story their way. Well, that's simply not the case as all throughout life people have created their own ethical mindset which is embedded with morals, principles and values. Writing with a sense of power and information is quite similar as to what most mothers teach their kids growing up. In my case, my mother made it clear that there are always two sides to a story and people need to listen to both before making judgments. The RTDNA Code of Ethics goes along with that saying, "For every story of significance, there are always more than two sides."

Courtesy of Pam Grout

Though Mom might not be able to cover all the codes, great movies such as "A Few Good Men" help fill in the gaps. The importance of the truth is visible in this movie as Lt. Daniel Kaffee defends two U.S. Marines who have been charged with killing a fellow Marine. When Kaffee is on the brink of the truth, in the middle of a heated courtroom, Col. Nathan R. Jessup screams, "You can't handle the truth!"

This quote, as a journalist, holds an extreme importance. All publications that we work with will have information that the people do not and we, through our ethical codes and morals, have to decide whether or not we should run the story. The power that journalists hold is crucial towards the lives of the people and there's one code from the Online News Association Values statement that stands out, "Online journalists should maintain the highest principles of fairness, accuracy, objectivity and responsible independent reporting."

There will be opportunities as journalists when news and information shall arise that could have an impending cause or effect on a person, group, or even a global effect. An example of this comes from the movie "Five Star Final" where the news of the killer Nancy Voorhees Townsend's old life had been unveiled. This news led to her suicide and her husband's suicide while also ruining the marriage of her daughter. In this case, the story was ran based off a necessity for circulation increase, but had no positive impact for anyone other than the newspaper and wasn't information that the public needed.

The information published should be based off who the article could hurt and who the article could help. There needs to be information given to the people if it's something that they need to know. The stock market crash was a huge story and was needed to be told so that people could make their own decisions about their money.

Our job as journalists is to tell the truth and give information that is useful for the public. Mom's statement of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all," is extremely helpful because if there's more cons then pros from running the story, that's unethical.