ab883317@ohio.edu
Whether we realize it or not, journalism is an extremely powerful tool that, in the modern era, relies on political debate and entertainment value to satisfy the public's constant craving for new and riveting information. Since its early beginnings as a simple, trustworthy form of information delivery, journalism has now evolved into a social and political entity that greatly influences many aspects of our culture and government, while simultaneously satisfying the masses. But the way the news goes about affecting these facets of our society has become a widely debated topic, one mainly discussed from ethical standpoints.
Two of the main points of debate in our society today are the credibility of media outlets and fake news. In our current climate, the news is perceived as both a force for change and an enemy of the people. But no matter how it is seen, many people can agree that the trustworthiness of the news is one of the biggest problems in the United States today. Yet one of the causes of this distrust is the public and the intense focus they place on entertainment, which only serves to bring about a larger demand for media and news that is aimed to please and not to inform. Many reporters are susceptible to this pressure and the constant clamor for exciting and interesting news, and they continue to respond with increasingly embellished and misleading content. This cycle does create new forms of content that help diversify our media environment, but the damage it causes to the integrity of journalists and the trust placed in the media is detrimental to the fundamental ethical values the public places their faith in.
In the same vein of thought, politics and the current political climate in America also have an immense impact on the way the public views the media. In Chapter 1 of the text Moral Reasoning for Journalists, the author describes how journalism is viewed as both a profession and craft, protecting the rights of the people while following their code of ethics as well as acting as an autonomous, mostly ungoverned form of public expression. At its most basic, journalism was intended to be a democratic tool for informing the public, voicing their opinions, and encouraging them to embrace the rights granted to them as citizens of the United States. With these intentions, the media's main aim is, and was, to unveil the hidden truths behind our government and answer the public's cry for government transparency. However, this transparency often comes at a cost. As more and more politicians become cornered or exposed by a truth-seeking media, they retaliate and treat the media as an enemy. This reaches the people, usually through the news, and sows seeds of mistrust and wariness that discredits all journalists, painting them as untrustworthy, selfish gossips. Politicians criticizing journalists is nothing new, but the way journalism evolved from this criticism is problematic for ethical journalists everywhere.
Modern news outlets have perpetuated the idea that choosing a political side is necessary to fight back against politicians, which in turn creates a charged and often tense atmosphere around the media. It is now commonplace for people to choose specific news sources to subscribe to, which causes people to "become more and more siloed, cutting themselves off from information that they don't like or that contradicts their prior assumptions" (The Atlantic) This widens the divide between opposing sides of the political spectrum, sending the message to journalists that in order to succeed, they have to abandon the basic journalistic principle of neutrality and choose a side to favor in their reporting. Granted, bias is not always a negative characteristic in the news, but too much bias in a climate this charged and this intense serves only to create major ethical dilemmas that are often debated on a political level.
The cause and effect chain of social, political, and ethical dilemmas that have arisen in the past and in today's society because of the media has had an adverse effect on the credibility and trustworthiness of journalists everywhere. In our changing climate, there is no telling how much more the media will change and evolve, but I think many people can agree that it's time to return to some of those fundamentals that promoted honest, democratic, and ethical reporting.
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