Let's be Ethical

Taylor Highbloom

th764916@ohio.edu

Being a journalist has always been a difficult task. There are a series of moral and ethical dilemmas that you face on a day-to-day basis! However, journalism in recent years has taken more of a beating than ever before. 

The goal of an awesome journalist is to tell the truth and make ethical decisions. People blame the media for society's issues and people have begun to have a very anti-journalism mindset. There are many incredible journalists who perform incredibly on an everyday basis and do all the right things. Even though, there are more good journalists than bad ones, it is so much easier to hold onto the bad articles written by a small handful of bad journalists, than a stack of truthful articles written by good journalists

 

Source: Fake News: What Laws are Designed to Protect by Jane Haskins, esq. 

We must act on the negative animosity and not ignore the problem. In chapter one of Moral Reasoning for Journalists, the author suggests that journalists should "be able to respond to the criticism and to join in thoughtful discussion concerning what news people do." A discussion like this would potentially give people a different perspective on the media. Media-bashers views might change if we as journalists talk about it. I talked to my mother about this issue and she told me that she believes a lot of reporters add their own input to the news they are reporting. With that being said, we have to consider that political bias has been an issue and that people to believe that journalists have more liberal beliefs and that people believe that political conservatives "insist that the news media are hopelessly liberal." 

All of this isn't just a matter of being open to a discussion and hearing people out. The first chapter in Moral Reasoning for Journalists also mentions how journalists cannot rely on the go-with-your-gut attitude and just do what feels right. This kind of attitude is "far from reliable and almost never based on reason." So, we have to search for ethical reasons and not just make rash decisions. There is a reason that journalistic organizations have developed a code of ethics and we must follow it. 

The thing about ethical thinking is that it often is concerned with only thinking about oneself in society. However, in journalism we cannot think like that, we cannot just care for ourselves. Thomas Hobbes believed that humans generally think about themselves first. When you are a journalist, it is important to think about society as a whole! 

At the end of the day, we have to change the way people portray the media. Society shouldn't view the media as the enemy. Society should be able to watch the news and have faith and trust in the people they are listening to. It is important that journalists talk about why they do what they do and many journalists believe they have a calling. If the calling of a journalist is to help society function, then we must prove it. There is no excuse for sitting back. We must address journalism that is not ethical and do our jobs the best way possible!