Mary Jane Sanese
ms943920@ohio.edu
The journalism and media world is constantly changing in this modern age, especially with social media. As more people are able to write their own blogs, create their own websites, and share their opinions and world views on their social media pages, it means there is more content and news out than ever before. Before the internet, the news was produced by a smaller group of journalists, those who wrote for the newspaper, radio stations, magazines, or television news programs. But now, anyone can be a self proclaimed journalist.
As journalists, we abide by a code of ethics at every step of the news making process, from gathering the news, to writing our stories, and to distributing it. Average Joe sitting behind his computer posting on his Facebook is most likely not doing the same thing. People have a knack for saying a lot of things online that might not come out of their mouths in public, and we attribute that to being able to hide behind a a computer screen, which gives the person a sense of inflated confidence. The Ethical Journalism Network does a tremendous job in breaking down the issues that come with the increased user generated posts we are seeing on sites such as Twitter or Facebook.
It can be argued that hate speech is more prevalent now than ever, and it would make sense considering the internet. As Americans we have the right to free speech, so people believe they are able to post whatever they please whenever they want. This might be true to an extent, but if a site such as Twitter has community guidelines set in place, they have the right to remove any content that can be deemed as breaking those rules, and hate speech seems to be a guideline on most social media sites these days.
A journalist's job is to get the news out to the people in a credible and unbiased manner. So, what happens when a journalist is supposed to cover an event or happening that is about hate speech? The Center For Journalism Ethics has some great ideas on how a journalist can cover an emotionally charged event, specifically those pertaining to hate speech or racism, and being able to do this without causing more harm or spreading more hate speech to the readers of the article.
We must make sure that if we are writing an article about hate speech that we are not perpetuating it. There is no need to repeat offensive words or hate speech in our articles. We do not want to give the people producing the hate speech or racist words an opportunity to widen their platform. We must be tasteful and tactful in sharing this news. For example, instead of interviewing a racist, interview someone from a organization such as Black Lives Matter, and provide resources on how people can help strengthen the cause. It is always a good idea to try and educate readers, and make them aware that what they share and post on their sites is important, and they should think twice before clicking that post button. We all play a part in this!
Above all, we must remember that we want to minimize harm to the public, and to do so, we must make sure we are in no way writing anything that could cause hurt or harm to any groups of people. There is no reason to insult people, even the ones who might be insulting others with their hate speech. We report the facts and let the readers make up their own minds.
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