Being Ethical when Covering Combat

Isaac Miller
im30016@ohio.edu

Making ethical decisions is an important aspect of journalism. We are the ones who report to the public about important issues and topics. Making ethical decisions in our work will give people more reason to trust us.  The most important value for any journalist, in my opinion, is to always be truthful. Another value that I believe is important is minimizing harm. Both of these values, in my opinion, are the most important when it comes to covering war and combat. Another reason we need to be ethical when covering combat is that there are terrorists out there who understand how the media works.

             https://dartcenter.org/resources/journalists-and-safety-training-experiences-and-opinions

Covering war and combat is a dangerous job, and there have been more than 1,000 journalists who have been killed or seriously injured while they are covering war and over conflicts aboard, according to Frank Greve's article. They are also at risk of getting captured. It is a dangerous job, but I think it is a necessary thing to do so certain things that occur abroad do not go unnoticed by the American people. I think that the ethical principles that I have mentioned will help journalists in the coverage of war and combat.

Truth is important in covering war and combat because reporting information that is incorrect could have consequences for us and/or our nation's security. We need to verify things   Minimizing harm is important because there are some things that we get footage of that could be disturbing and/or offensive to some people. A good way to warn people of disturbing content is to put a warning before it is shown that says it may be disturbing to some viewers.

There are things that should be published because they could help to expose bad things that are going on. There was a photographer during the Vietnam War named Ron Haeberle who was traveling with an army unit. The unit went to the hamlet of My Lai and killed hundreds of people there. He took photos of people who had been killed, and one of them was eventually published in a Cleveland newspaper. He showed the photos that he took to people, and there were people that could not believe what had happened. I think that Haeberle was right to show these photos because it helped to document something bad that the soldiers were doing. A journalist named Seymour M. Hersh reported the story. The story that he uncovered won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Lt. William M. Calley had been behind the murder of hundreds of people in My Lai. It was not right what Calley did in My Lai, and it needed to be exposed. It is our duty as journalists to hold the powerful accountable, and I think that it was good that Seymour M. Hersh reported what had happened.

I do not know what kind of things I may cover in the future as a journalist, but I think will be sure to keep the ethical principles I have mentioned in mind if I cover things that could be disturbing to some people. There are things that could be disturbing, but it is important to report them because they could help to hold the powerful accountable.