Teaching Notes
You must become the flame on the candle. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Wag More, Bark Less
"As a rule, journalists should always question the ethics of politicians and public relations practitioners because these two groups consistently have their own best interests at heart," Berrin Beasely writes in her essay, "Political Manipulation of the Media: Wag the Dog." Do you agree or disagree? Why?
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Is Media Ethics Education DOA?
It sounds like a joke Jay Leno would tell during his opening monologue on The Tonight Show. Hear about the graduate students at the prestigious journalism school? They got caught cheating on an ethics exam. Ha ha ha. Except that’s actually what happened at Columbia University
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
A Question for Socrates
The question of how ethics is learned, or even if it can be, is as old as Western philosophy. In Plato’s dialog Meno the title character asks, “Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?” Of course, Socrates, being Socrates, resists giving a definite answer. But we can’t. The sad fact is, students had better get an effective ethics education now or they may never.
Last summer I conducted an ethics workshop for some reporters and editors at the Poughkeepsie Journal, a small daily in upstate
But what I remember most is the air of defeat that clung to the staff as we sat on hard plastic chairs in the break room discussing the cases. I could hear in their voices the bitterness and cynicism of employees forced to follow corporate policies they despised. Recently, for example, the paper had started running display ads on the front page and section fronts, a much more grievous ethical lapse, their mumbled asides suggested, than anything the case studies might have to offer.
I don’t want my students to ever wear the gray, defeated expression I saw that day on the faces at the Journal. But given the downward direction in which the media are moving, and fast, how in the world can I prevent it from happening?
Teaching Media Ethics by Telling Stories
A friend of mine who teaches at a big Midwestern university recounts in class the events of her first week as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune. She was sent to Duluth to cover Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey on the campaign trail. When they were introduced, Humphrey vigorously shook her hand. “Oh yes, Susan,” he said, “I read your stuff all the time.” He couldn’t have read her stuff, though; she hadn’t written anything yet. “Just a few words,” she explains to her students, “but words that taught this fledging reporter a great lesson about pols and the little lies they tell.”
I usually find occasion during the semester to quote I. F. Stone’s dictum, “Every government is run by liars and thieves, and nothing they say should be believed,” to make the same point. But Susan’s story makes the point better. That’s because it has existential force. Her story vividly captures in a way a secondhand quote can’t the realities of a reporter’s life.
Some might think telling “war stories” is a waste of precious class time. I’ve a colleague who didn’t want to fall into the “trap” of regaling students with stories ad nauseam (“which, let’s face it, is easier than teaching or grading,” he said). So one semester he kept track. When he toted it all up at the end, he was surprised that he’d used less than an hour - out of 45 – talking about his newspaper experiences. And yet, he admitted, it was his stories that students seemed to remember most.
“Stories teach us how to live,” Daniel Taylor said in his essay, “The Ethical Implications of Storytelling.” What he meant was that stories preserve our experience for contemplation and evaluation. Although not all stories carry a heavy message, there’s an entire category of stories, so-called “exemplary tales,” that are told to convey a moral.
Our war stories are potentially just such tales. They can provide evidence, in ethicist John Barton’s words, of “how real human beings live through various crises and trials and remain human.” My colleague who kept tabs on his storytelling has described his stories as cautionary. Most, he said, deal with “screwups I learned from.”
But sometimes the storyteller and the audience can’t agree on what exactly the moral of a story is.
When Susan was a cub reporter on the Tribune, she interviewed the Beatles, who were on their second tour of the States. She got into their hotel room by dressing up as a waitress in an ugly, mustard-colored uniform and accompanying an actual room service waiter upstairs. Ringo took one look at her little plastic name tag – it read “Donna Brown” – and snorted, “What kind of name is that?” The waiter nudged her in the side. “Tell them what you real name is,” he urged. She did, as well as her reason for being there. Rather than throw her out, the Beatles politely answered her questions. They even let her phone for a photographer. The next day her story ran on the front page, with a photo of John sitting at a table and looking up at her and laughing as she poured coffee in his cup. She still has a glossy print of that photo somewhere.
Many of Susan’s students think she’s nuts for not having the photo hanging up in her office. They also think she’s nuts for saying she’d never participate in the same kind of stunt today. To her celebrity-struck students, disguising herself as a hotel waitress to get an interview with the Beatles seems soooo cool. They lose all sight of the fact that it wasn’t a story of vital public interest that demanded undercover methods.
Susan intends one lesson when she talks about her hard day’s night, but her students, living in a paparazzi-saturated culture, draw another. “It may be a lost cause,” she remarked to me.
Or maybe not. Negotiations over what the point of a story is can be part of the point of the story. In the process of negotiating, we test different interpretations, try out different themes. This is helpful. This is educational. Lawrence Kohlberg, the Harvard psychologist famous for his research on the stages of moral development, contended that “the teaching of virtue is the asking of questions. . . not the giving of answers.” Stories don’t necessarily have to yield clear moral rules to be of value. It’s enough sometimes if they just give us something to think about.
20 comments:
As a public relations major, I would agree with Berrin Beasely’s statement that journalists should question the ethics of public relations practitioners. The PR code of ethics stresses the importance of honesty and behaving with the public’s best interest, but PR professionals also have a commitment to the companies they work for. Since PR professionals have a double commitment and the loyalties to the company and public may conflict, journalists serve as a system of checks and balances.
I would not agree with Beasely’s negativity that PR professionals CONSISTENTLY have their own best interests at heart because I feel as if it’s the PR professionals job to come to a medium – a solution that will satisfy the company and the public. Therefore, it is true that PR practitioners are always looking to portray their companies positively but they also have a sense of loyalty to the public. I do not think that PR professionals would want to deceive the public but every field has its own corruptions. And this is where journalists would come in, to minimize the corruptions.
The only problem with Beasley's statement is that constant suspicion breeds an environment of distrust and feeds into the adversarial relationship between the press and everyone else. However, in this day and age, an adversarial relationship is probably the best thing, considering PR practictioners and politicians pretty much do always have their best interests at heart. But, in a less dog eat dog world, I would say it's better to put trust in people so that they feel obligated to do the right thing because of that, not because they are constantly being threatened with bad publicity. It's like what we said in class about threatening kids with bad grades if they don't do well: people should WANT to do well in school so that they are more educated, not because of the threat of a "bad mark" or competition with peers. Unfortunately though, it's naive to be that idealistic in today's world.
So that being said, I do think that it's best to question the ethics of politicians and PR practicioners today. I don't believe either group has been adequately schooled in ethics. PR practicioners, I feel, usually go into the field because the money is better than journalism and the work is easier. I think it's a rare PR person who truly believes in the mission of the people they're representing. As for politicians, it just makes for better journalism to be constantly questioning their ethics. That doesn't mean I think we should constantly be accusing politicias of ethical misbehavior. If we did that, we wouldn't be able to get as much information out of policians because they would be wary of how cutthroat we are. Better to be aggressive on paper than in person. Ethical questioning though, should just always be in the back of our minds.
Although I am a Public Relations major, and would fight to the death to defend my area of study, I do believe that this statement is accurate. While it is specifically listed in the Public Relations Code of Ethics that lying is wrong, spinning is a very common practice in PR, and while it might not be exactly a lie, this could be viewed as being deceitful. I know that, especially when faced with a bad situation, us Public Relations specialists will do anything to make the bad look good. This doesn't mean that the statement that has been made is exactly an untrue one, but if you were going to use something stated by a Public Relations consultant in a story, you would have to double check the validity of the statement. Again, I do not believe it would be because the Public Relations expert is lying or intentionally being deceitful, we just all tend to have pretty big (vulnerable) egos.
i need help. . . how is deceit not a lie? how is a half-truth not deceit? . . . I'm serious in these questions. . . are we deceiving ourselves when we say a half-truth is as good as whole truth? or that deceit in all its various manifestations isn't a kind of lie?
Although I do not agree that “these two groups consistently have their own best interests at heart” I do agree with Beasely and believe that journalists should always question the ethics of politicians and public relations. As a public relations major, and as a voting citizen of the United States as well, I question most of what I hear all the time. For the most part, I do not take what I hear from politicians or public relations practitioners at face value. I like to hear all sides of an issue, the pros the cons, the opposing viewpoints for my own benefit.
I think it is known that politicians are corrupt. It has been that way for years. Of course there are politicians who truly believe in what they are preaching and really want to make a difference and help the public. There are some who believe in making the public trust the government and they act ethically to reinforce this idea. There are also politicians who are very unethical and will say things to the public simply to gain support and get your vote. These politicians will then behave in an unethical way to get their way and gain something for their personal benefit.
In the case of public relations practitioners, I would say to always question their ethics. It is their job to push the public to view something a certain way. Sometime this can come off as deceit and sometimes there is unethical action being taken. I do not think that this is always for their personal benefit. PR practitioners have a loyalty to their profession and to the company that they work for. Although it may not be ethical, some PR practitioners will do unethical things to get the job done and that is a personal choice to do that. There are, however, some PR practitioners who only work for a company that they believe in and fully support.
I believe that this statement is very accurate as the capitalist market place in American society has lead to a profit driven society. In most cases, the retention of the most profits requires that the individuals in the positions of power throw the interest of the public to the side and put their best interests at heart. Therefore to ensure the validity of politicians and public relations officials statements, journalist must question the ethics of their actions. Each politician and PR official should be required to justify their actions as when the reasoning behind their behaviors are public, we can then begin to see the whether the actions being carried out by these individual are ethical or not.
It is implied in the nature of a journalist work that they use their job as a method of checks and balances for politicians and public relations officials. Without journalist, the only messages the public will receive would be from politicians and pr officials who have their vested interests at heart as they would be able to create ideas that would never be questioned.
I’m a journalism major, and I can see the validity of Beasley’s statement. It feel as though everyone has an agenda nowadays. Politicians run on a certain platform, pushing a certain reform, putting their own interests ahead of the needs of others. PR people have clients that are paying them tons of money to make them (the clients) look great. Even if the client is wrong, their PR team will make it seem like they are not. These are harsh generalizations, I realize this. And I know it’s not fair to lump a whole group of people together like that. Not every politician is that selfish, nor is every PR manager, but there is a substantial enough number that prompts people to think this way.
Now thinking about my own major, there are certainly some of the same problems. Some journalists, such as Stephen Glass, put their own needs first, and ruin the integrity of the profession. It causes the public to not trust us, and generalize all journalists the same way we do to politicians and PR people.
I believe Beasley is making a very valid statement when she says politicians and PR practitioners should not be trusted because they have their own best interests at heart. This discussion comes at a very appropriate time, being that elections are right around the corner. Every other commercial on the television is an “I approve this message” campaign. Does anyone take those commercials seriously? These people will do anything to convince the public to vote for them. They want to make us believe that they are different and that they are going to be the ones to fix our corrupt system and make our world a better place. They try to get that point across by running commercials that make their competitor look horrible. That seems like a mature thing to do (insert sarcasm). In my opinion, that sort of stuff just proves to me how ruthless these politicians are.
PR professionals run into the same problem. It's impossible to be loyal to both the public and the client because their interests are different. The companies are the ones paying for the PR, so the PR is going to reflect the interests of the companies. Journalists should always take what these people say with a grain of salt.
I'm a public relations major as well and I can only partially agree with Beasely's statement on questioning the ethics of politicians and PR practitioners. Politicians are always attached with negativity, whether it be with scandals or a particular issue that reoccurs in the media so it would seem reasonable to question their ethics. It's the same case with PR practitioners- because it isn't their duty to "seek truth and report it," one would have to question what they're doing their job for, besides for the company. But I would have to disagree on the part where she says that "PR practitioners consistently have their own best interests at heart." Not all people are the same at doing their jobs, some truly believe in what company they're representing and will lay out everything for them. It just seems like a common misconception these days to constantly give PR as a whole a bad rap.
I don’t know that much about public relations or what they do besides work with clients to sell products or promote their brand, and work diligently to appease everyone. Beasley says unsavory comments about PR practitioners about manipulating the media and not adhering to the same guidelines as journalists, which is of course true, but PR follows a similar set of ethical guidelines that adheres to their profession. They seem to use it differently because their clients character is more important than their own.
Beasley admits that Wag the Dog is outlandish and the fault of PR seems a little too extreme.
On page 45, she says that “the only surefire method for preventing such manipulation is the execution of solid, ethical reporting” then quotes the SPJ Code of Ethics. In her essay, it’s almost as if she’s questioning whether or not it’s up to the journalists to tackle unethical press coverage and clean up the ‘mess’ left by PR practitioners, and with her quote, it seems to vehemently accuse PR of everything that does go wrong with making clients and the press happy. I would agree with her quote because both professions are responsible for manipulating the media and maintaining loyalty to their own sources and that PR and politicians may have their own best interest at heart, however. I agree with Annie’s comment that PR serves a double commitment and loyalties to their clients so journalists are left as a form of “checks and balances”. Journalists definitely keep their best interest at heart when reporting any type of news, especially political news because of the scandals and elections, but I do not see journalists and politicians in the same light as PR.
What you expect from both of these professions is nothing surprising anymore, whether they’re all half-hearted or hypocritical. From what I’ve observed and read about the PR world, everything needs to be packaged nicely and they are consistently guilty of forgetting their code of ethics along with journalists and politicians. PR picks up the pieces for their clients’ mess and fixes/enhances their reputation. Even the White House can’t stand up for wrongdoing or treason, and publications need to fire journalists and hopefully apologize to their readers for unethical reporting.
I agree with Beasley’s comment because in order to uncover the truth to the best of our ability, journalists should question politicians or any authoritarian source. Politicians are trained to develop rhetoric that is appealing to their audience. PR practitioners are trained to sell their cause.
Like Beasley said, PR practitioners and politicians have their own best interest at heart and I think their ethical values are many times put to the side. I think in order to reach a point of trust, we must continue to question and unravel the true intentions of politicians. Journalists should remain curious and continue to publish the experiences of the people that are affected by the legislations politicians are so quick to promote.
I do believe that there are trustworthy politicians and PR practitioners, but a corrupt system still exists and in order to trust, that system must be repaired. So, for now questioning the ethics of politicians and PR practitioners should be a priority of a journalist.
As a Public Relations major, I too believe Berrin Beasely's statement in that journalists should question the ethics of politicians and PR practitioners, however, journalists should also question the ethics of other journalists. For Journalists, the Code of Ethics is to be followed strictly, or else the truth gets distorted, but for PR practictioners, the truth can be a little fondled with without so much penalty.
Unlike journalists, PR practitioners are like businessmen. We have to satisfy our clients before the people, allowing for tweeking, enhancing, sugar-coating, whatever. PR practitioners serve to appease categories of different audiences, through many different medias, both good and bad. They have more of a flexibility, which can lead to questioning. Journalists have to stick to the facts, though it easier said than done. THough PR practitioners are faulty in being questioned for their ethics, I personally admit it, but journalists do not go unquestioned.
As a journalism major, I wholeheartedly agree with Beasely's statement about politicians and public relations practitioners denying the public truth in exchange for promoting their own self-interests. A healthy skepticism is inherent in being a good journalist, and although trusting no one isn't an option (there would be no sources), the difficult part is knowing who to trust.
When making that decision, there are many factors one must take into account, but one of the simplest and easiest to judge would be the intent, or motives behind who is saying what is being said. While informants or sources often have their own agendas, and can often provide only information that helps their cause, they haven't made this practice their profession. Politicians and p.r. people are literally paid, on a daily basis, based on how well they can persuade people into believing their spin on a story. While some of the information may be truthful and factual, everyone, not just journalist, are forced to take everything said by these people with a grain of salt, and it is the job of a journalist to question those statements, and find the truth somewhere in the mire, the deluge of half-truths and empty promises.
To say that a journalist should judge the ethics of another is hard to say, because who am I to judge someone elses character. But to say that their motives will always be deceitful and corrupt is an accurate statement, and what they say and do is never what they are really saying or doing.
Historically speaking, it is not hard to point out the defects of both pr representatives and politicians. Indeed there is a great amount of people involved in both fields that make drastic decisions that frequently sacrifice the general public in an attempt to benefit their personal agendas. In this respect, I agree with the statement. But it cannot be ignored that there are also journalists, the ultimate “truth-seekers”, that violate the SPJ code of ethics in order to obtain immediate recognition and applause for their “masterpiece”. So in this sense, I feel that Beasley’s conclusion is incredibly lopsided. For that reason, I would expect that all competent and honest journalists to be suspicious of these platforms as well as the authenticity of journalism itself. As Beasley mentions, it is very easy for the media to be manipulated, but only with good ethical reporting and double-checking on accuracy of sources and information can a reporter weed out the nonsense from a reachable truth.
As a PR major I agree with this statement completely. Since I could remember the word politician has always been associated with lies and deceit. Even looking at the recent ridiculous election commercials you can tell by the politicians campaigns that they only think about themselves. PR practitioners often think about themselves, because the issue of money v. ethics, and more times than not they chose money because ethics doesn't always agree with what the client wants, and the client is where the money is coming from. Even though there are honest PR people and politicians there are more dishonest ones and unfortunately it becomes the journalists job to weed out good from bad.
Well I believe both professions are very lucrative. It’s up to the individual practicing PR or a politician how ethical one will be. I partially agree with Berrin Beasely that it’s essential to have journalist question the ethics of both professions if we want any balance in the world. I unfortunately think there are more ethical PR practioners than there are politicians though, and that’s not just because I’m a PR major. PR practioniers care about both the public and their client. Politicians care about the public; so much as they pay millions on ads to gain votes so they could be in office. There are currently no billionaire PR professionals, but there are plenty of billionaire politicians. Anybody with that much money and makes decision’s while claiming to have the public’s best interest in mind is completely disturbing. If I were a politician (which I would never be because I despise politics all together) and had that much money I would donate almost all of it to charities. I see this simply as the right thing to do.
The way I see it is, they proudly say “I’m a politician and I love democracy and I love this countries citizens” whether it’s a local Senator or the President. The thing is once you’re a politician at a certain status you’re guaranteed to live a comfortable life. Other politicians will always have your back, and the government will always have your back. You’re essentially guaranteed to lead a good life no matter what. Why do you need an excess amount of money when there are uneducated kids who are fighting to be educated, going to inner city schools that need a scholarship to go to college and dream about creating “real change.” I’ll tell you why, because unfortunately with money comes power, and power in the wrong hands breeds corruption.
If this country wants to see change, it’s going to take more than just voting democrat or republican. It’s going to take a complete reinvention of how we think and ask questions, and how content we are with the status quo of things. What’s the good of an economy if the dollar loses value, inflation skyrockets and people can’t afford to purchase things, leading to less of a demand, in turn leading to less of a workforce? You may be questioning this as the politician drives buy in a Hummer who has inside interest in the oil companies which support the politicians, and the government that supports and bails out the auto companies, who are being manipulated by the oil companies that support and control the politicians, who are all content with it because they have it good from either end. So why shake things up? Journalist are crucial to any democracy, not the ones who are in it for the fame, or the sensational story, or the profit; but the ones who are in it to make sure America doesn’t collapse in on itself.
As a PR major, I would agree with Berrin Beasely’s quote that journalists should always question the ethics of PR professionals. However, I only agree to a certain extent. PR professionals practice under the PR Code of Ethics. The PRSA Code of Ethics requires practitioners to remain loyal to their clients while at the same time serve the public’s interest and remain honest. This is where things can become complicated. Many PR professionals often serve their client’s interest over the publics. This creates a lot of problems and has given the PR profession a tarnished name because of corrupt ethical misconduct. However, it is wrong to believe that all PR professionals consistently have their best interest in mind.
I don’t agree with Berrin Beasely’s idea that politicians and PR professionals should be put in the same category of corruption. I find that statement to be very extreme in nature and stereotypical. Politicians have had an extensive history of corruption whether it involves sex scandals, money laundering, hiding facts from the public, etc. I think that politicians always need to be questioned because their hands are always in someone else’s pockets, regardless of whatever platform they sell from. Hence where political journalism really comes in. PR professionals do not consistently have their own best interest in mind, because it is their trade to please both the public and the client. It is wrong to think that PR is as corrupt as politics, because it simply isn’t. I agree that there have and always will be corruption in PR, but there will always be corruption in any field where money is involved. Money is the root of all evil. However, to say that PR professionals and politicians are in the same category of corruption is just extreme in nature, and should not be taken seriously.
As far as I'm concerned, this statement is very accurate. Personally, I tend to look at anything PR through wary eyes; as for politicians, I trust little to nothing of what they say. I'd say it's usually true that both of these groups "have their own best interests at heart". Politicians do everything, it seems, with the ultimate intention of getting more votes. And those in PR seem to have gone into the industry because there is better money in it than there is in journalism. There are obviously exceptions, but that seems to be the trend. I don't like to be cynical about things, but in this situation, I feel like it's completely necessary to take things with a grain of salt. Otherwise, you're going to end up bullshitted and naive about the way things really are. Journalists needs to be able to read between everything politicians and PR agents say, because that's the only way the public is going to be informed in an unbiased, honest, objective way.
What it comes down to is that, like a lot of journalists in the field today, PR agents and politicians don't have any truly enforceable code of ethics. As a result, a lot of people in the industries are just in it for themselves, not for the public or anyone else. That, in and of itself, is a violation. It justifies constant scrutiny.
Sorry for my lateness! I figured better late than never...
I agree that journalists should questions the ethics of politicians and PR professionals. I also think that journalists should question the ethics of almost everyone. There are not many people who don’t have their own best interests at heart.
In general, it’s a journalist’s job to question, doubt, and seek out the ultimate truth from any source. I do however agree that PR people, and politicians are often shiftier than the average person. Politics and journalism had worked hand in hand for the majority of our press’ history, only recently have they been separated, and partisan interests are separated from journalistic interests. But the practice of politicians and political parties using the media has always been, and will always be. It’s up to the journalists to provide the correct information, to clearly inform the public of the truth behind these agendas.
I actually think its more important for journalists to question the motives and ethics of PR professionals because I think mainly their soul job is to make money, even if that means lying and manipulating. With politicians its often easy to spot their bullshit, but PR professionals have become very good at manipulation and using the public. (like in that staged audience case we discussed)
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