The Good, the Bad and the Ethical

Sara Dowler
sd719116@ohio.edu

Source: news.mit.edu

So often are the words 'good' and 'ethical' thought of as synonymous.  I myself believed the two words to be interchangeable until reading chapter one of the second edition of Moral Reasoning for Journalists. 

On the surface level, it makes sense that these two words should mean the same thing. For don't we make ethical decisions in the name of the common good? Are we not good journalists as a result of making ethical decisions? Aren't good decisions ethical ones as well?

While we hope that our good intentions shine through as we make decisions throughout our lives, it is often the case, especially in journalism, that these ethical decisions, despite whatever good intentions we may have, are not so black and white as the difference between good and bad.

Due to this fact, chapter one of Moral Reasoning for Journalists urges readers to separate the words 'ethical' from 'good' and 'unethical' from 'bad' when working through their ethical decision-making process. Instead, the chapter encourages readers to use the word 'ethical' to describe choices that reflect reasoning and 'unethical' to describe choices based on assumption, emotion or reflex. Thus, completely taking the words 'good' and 'bad' out of the ethical decision-making process.

This idea particularly stood out to me because often we know what is right or wrong when faced with a decision, but whether a decision is good or bad can be muddled by personal interest or other pressures. However, it is this way of thinking presented in chapter one that can help journalists navigate the gray area between good and bad when trying to make an ethical decision. For it is this gray area where journalists often run into trouble.

As explained in this video, with misinformation spreading like wildfire and the term 'fake news' being constantly passed around the internet, trust between journalists and their audience has been severely damaged. This can then have the potential for danger. For if audiences do not know who to trust in the media, it makes navigating events such as elections harder to participate in when you do not know what is true or false about a politician, or another example is events such as natural disasters, if there is distrust in the media it can slow an audience's response to getting to safety.

Ultimately, this damage to the audience's trust in the media now makes ethical decision making more high-stakes than ever before. And while trust in the media may be making a comeback, as this article suggests, trust in the media is still a delicate matter.

For even though the data may show a rise in the audience's trust this by no means should indicate that trust in the media is completely restored. For, as shown in the article, trust still varies from media outlet type, political parties, certain networks and much more.

So, it is more important now than ever for journalists to understand this difference between 'good' and 'ethical' or 'bad' and 'unethical' so that journalists across the globe may understand the mechanics behind their decisions. All so that journalists can continue to win back their audience's trust so that trust in the media can continue to rise and the world can become a more trusting and ethical place.