Teaching Notes
Is Media Ethics Education DOA?
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.
25 comments:
I would say that experiences in my life definitely reorder my values. In college, I have realized what it is like to be away from my family and close friends on Long Island. This has taught me to value the time that I have with them during breaks that I have from school. I have also learned the value of hard work in college. In high school, I found myself breezing through my classes and getting good grades. However, college is about prioritizing and being organized. I have found that valuing homework over going to bars is a much better choice. Since I began training in Journalism and Public Relations, I have learned to value the truth. I had an internship as a PR blogger, at which I was told to make up stories that would make our clients look good. I understand that this is a form of advertising and marketing but I did not see that as ethical journalism or Public Relations. It was from this that I learned that I wanted to work for a company that only sent out factual information.
This question was difficult for me to answer, because while I have definitely changed as a person since high school and since studying journalism, I don't believe the full effect of those changes can be seen while I am still in the college setting. Moreover, my core values have remained the same since I was very young: I value truth, I value loyalty, and I value hard work. Perhaps my biggest change since high school is that I have learned the value of respect. I try to offer the values and opinions of others the same respect I believe I am deserved as a human being, something that I did not always practice in high school. As for what has changed since studying journalism, I think it's made me move my value of honesty--which was already high on the list--even further up. But as I said, I don't think that the full effect of these changes will be noticeable until I have to apply them somewhere outside of college.
Life experiences and events definitely shape what one values in life. When I was wrapping up my 9th grade year, my mother had a severe stroke, in which she was not suppose to survive. She miraculously did, however ended up passing away a little over a year later due to complications during surgery. This experience definitely made me reevaluate my values in life. Since this experience, I definitely place a high priority on family and life in general. Loosing my mother so unexpectedly put things into perspective for me. People can be taken from you at any instance, so it is important to make sure you make every minute count. It taught me to value everything that I do have in my life and to make sure I do not take anything for granted.
Once I started studying journalism/PR, I have definitely came to value truth. Before taking a lot of classes, I did not necessarily think lying was right, but definitely saw it is acceptable in some situations, such as "little white lies." However, a lie is a lie is a lie. It never acceptable to lie or distort the facts at hand and I am extremely grateful for have learning this before going out into the real world.
I'm a firm believer that experiences in life have the effect to alter one's values. Personally, I don't have one particular incident, but studying abroad definitely changed a couple of my values. I went to Spain last semester to finish my Spanish minor. It made me realize that in America the culture is very self centered and egocentric. There's a huge focus and sensationalizing "everyday people" and turning them into celebrities. In Spain, they began to mimick that with a popular show, Gandia Shore, after Jersey Shore. However, the show was highly criticized and is in the process of being taken off the air. In America, we have tons of shows similar to this. The difference is that in Europe, no one sits down to watch TV or pay attention to it. No one is on their smart phone all day long. It made me value life itself so much more and gave me a much more global perspective to be able to see where I fit in with the rest of the world. When I was in Amsterdam I realized that sex doesn't always have to be a taboo. In Morocco, I hung out with a group of little boys on the street who sold leather bracelets for one Euro to help support their families. My overall experience abroad broadened my sense of being and made me value the "little things in life" much more.
Since being a Journalism/PR student, I've learned to value honesty. I have not been able to practice it yet, but reviewing case studies and talking about what's going on in the news in class showed me that the right thing to do is always to be honest. Contraversial situations where a company messed up can always be made better if they acknowledge their faults and accept the blame.
It is clichéd, but the virtue of honesty has definitely moved up my list since high school. Despite the fact that I enjoy acting, I have never been comfortable lying to other people. I am very close with both my parents, and can probably count on one hand how many times I have lied to each of them in my life. But I exaggerated. I embellished. I couldn’t tell a story without it being dramatic. If I told my friends I was on a hot beach somewhere, it was never “hot.” It was “so hot I honestly thought I was going to get heat stroke.” I was aware of this personality quirk, but I didn’t think it was particularly detrimental. And if it would take effort to break it, why try to fix it? It was me, and everyone seemed to accept it.
After coming to college, I lived with a girl who had a significant impact on how I viewed honesty. My roommate and I bonded right away and quickly became best friends. But, similar to my high school self, she couldn’t communicate with other humans without exaggerating. She exaggerated to the point of essentially lying, and in many cases, omitting the important truths that provided important balance to a story. It became not surprising to hear her complain about an argument with one of my friends, and after getting my friend’s side of it, learning she told me 25% of what happened (all the while embellishing how he “yelled” at her, not “told her”). Though I value our friendship, I no longer value her honesty, and unfortunately can’t take anything she tells me without a grain of salt. This experience has greatly impacted the way I view the communication of information. I am much more literal when I speak now, and every time my roommate dramatically recounts something that happened to her, it reminds me why I need to remain grounded in what I say and how I choose to say it.
Since I began training as a journalist, I have also become more honest. Journalism has taught me that the only thing that matters in a story is the facts, and how they are presented to you. Going to class every day and learning about this discipline, combined with going back to my room and spending time with my roommate, have resulted in me making honesty a much higher priority than I used to, something I am grateful for.
I have always considered myself a virtuous person and that showed throughout my life. Of course, no one is perfect nor can they be good andvdisplay their values at all times. I would say that I have definitely matured and realized some behavior I acted out in middle and high school did not reflect the good character I developed. A virtue that has moved up in my list is honesty. This has also been reinforced through my time in college and as an aspiring journalist. I was never a list or cheater but I never really viewed honesty with such high esteem as I do now. I guess I thought that telling lies were OK if they were small and if they protected someone from potential trouble. The pinnacle of this realization came to me when I was 18 and I went away on vacation with my friends. We were staying at my one friend's grandparent's hotel in Puerto Rico and they had jeeps for guests to use and of course, let us use them. My other friend did not have a senior license at the time and wanted to drive but couldn't. I was in charge of driving but she begged me to have a turn and reluctantly, I let her. A long story short, she banged up he car and to save our asses, mostly hers, I lied and said a truck swiped it while the car was parked. After that day, I felt so bad. I couldn't believe I had abandoned my values. Alasdair MacIntyre said in the article that ethics are a set of virtues grounded in our social practices and giving us character or social identities. But the main point of the chapter was that you must not abandon those values and "walk the walk" because you can't do something unethical and pretend that it is outside of you and you can be someone better despite the unethical actions you commit. As a journalist, I think it is important to remember that when you leave your house for work you shouldn't leave your virtues at home and when you leave work, you should take those virtues back home. To me, honesty is critical in journalism. Never is it OK to lie and sometimes telling the truth will hurt one person, actually I am pretty sure it does hurt someone. Truth is important because without it, what is journalism? Just lies, opinion and trickery. That is not it's purpose and that is not what good journalists do.
Some of my values have changed from high school, and not necessarily for the better. I feel that the American educational system is partially to blame for this for putting so much of an emphasis on grading and not enough of an emphasis on actually learning and retaining the material taught. I have found that as far as general education requirements go, I do the bare minimum for the sake of a grade, often dozing off during class and cramming for exams a few nights before. I don't value education as much as numerical credits, and I feel that this value on credits has been instilled in us college students from the moment we got to school. It has always been about fulfilling a magic number of natural science credits and math credits and world history credits and so forth, but never about the actual material learned in those classes. In high school, I was actually interested in learning and taking different classes to retain the material taught there, but once I got to college, my educational values changed drastically.
As far as being a journalism student, my values have also changed drastically for the better. Training has taught me to spot biased and incomplete news coverage, and has given me the tools to be more critical and careful about the material I believe and hear about on the news. If I weren't a journalism student, an incident like coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing wouldn't have bothered me at all, however, after being in classes like this where we are trained to be critical of news and after being an editor at The Oracle, where we are taught how to be careful and objective journalists, I realize just how much skepticism and sensationalizing goes into news today.
From High School until this moment, I have not had my Odyssey. No great adventure or tests, just tests about other people's adventures. Now that I am coming to the end of my college experience, it feels like I place more importance on Truth and Justice, but so far these ideas have only just been thoughts or beliefs. No experience has really tested me one way or another, not in a serious way. Finding a $100 bill on the ground and putting up signs in hopes the owner will come back for it is not the mark of just life. Getting a degree isn't the same as searching for the truth. I feel that now I'm being released from the metaphoric bubble of academia, I'll actually find out what kind of person I've become and what kind of values I really have.
From my studies in Journalism, as well as the media as a whole, I've certainly come to value Honesty more than ever. Before college I already had a somewhat jaded and distrusting view of the media as a whole, though admittedly this was a feeling imprinted on me, rather than my own opinions. However, after being taught about things like Stealth Marketing, Press Releases, Brand Journalism, etc., I have now just begun to see a glimpse of how a portion of these stories disseminate. So as a result, I've moved up honesty as a desired value in all facets of my life.
Since high-school i've realized that people are sad, tired and confused. It’s like if we were in a zoo, an exhibit or something, our little card would say that next to our cage. This is a human. They are often sad, tired and confused. I wish it would say something like; “ has the only brain that can contemplate themselves contemplating and it works out for them!”. But lately I’m not sure it always does. People have this innate quality to feel magic, connected and loved but all the wires have been crossed and we are left with twitter updates and bills we can’t pay. And that’s not the question, I know. But my values have shifted with the complete understanding of this. I value the magical moments, whether they be in sports, government or at my families dinner table. I cant ever put into words how happy a heartfelt story makes me or when one of the Met’s announcers says that Ike Davis “…mind as well be swinging a rolled up tortilla down there”. Because it’s human, it’s real and pure. And something about his inability to hit the ball makes him a real person. Someone maybe I could actually connect and eat chicken fingers with? That idea or that feeling is so lost today. I rarely feel connected to people that I’m told to idolize. We are divided into class systems and often time die thinking we could have been something better, richer and more successful. But those who are the most successful are the most corrupt! So how do you decide when to sell your soul? I know there is a need to stray away from aided opinions and people who don’t actually care about you. I want a president who doesn’t only visit disaster areas, depending on them being a swing state and charities that don’t have secret agendas.
I’ve changed in the sense that I recognize a need for change and a need to humanize journalism but more so large corporations. I want to run to the president of every large corporation, shake their shoulders ask them if they ever cry at night. I recognize the need for this more then I ever have. And I plan to devote my life to real, honest news, people who will give me the recognition I deserve and magical moments that cant be brought to me by text message, status updates or at the “app store”. I find honestly to be the most important factor in this equation(something I’ve never felt before) and hope that I am able to carry this promise I’m making to my self out in an effective way.
I don't think that a person's ethical growth ever stops developing. I do think that a persons values can change as they have new experiences in life. A person's values can go from what they learn at home, to their socialization in school and with friends and family outside of the home, and finally, when a person begins to live on their own and discover who they really are as an individual. This last step, I don't think can be reached until someone goes through some sort of struggle. A person has to grieve, lose, suffer, hustle, cry, fight, etc. to really reach a point where they find their place in the world and figure out how they feel about politics, careers, and life in general.
Since high school, I don't think that my values have changed that much. I have developed more of an understanding of class struggles since my time in college and that causes me to re-evaluate my life's experiences verses someone else's. Becoming more aware of classes has made me more grateful that I have a car to commute to campus with, opportunities, to be in college, an opportunity to go on vacation, and to not worry about my parents losing our home. One main value that I have developed is that physical possessions are great for using in order to help myself achieve a goal or help others but they should not be the most important part of my life. They also should not be my ultimate goal.
As Professor Good stated in class, life doesn't start later, it is happening now. I have tried stick to my morals because my choices in my life now will affect me in my life later.
In terms of journalism, I am struggling with having to chose between objective reporting and my values and beliefs. In the future, I will have to seriously consider the company I work for and what they stand for. Otherwise, I would "selling my soul to the devil" as they saying says.
Since entering college and majoring in journalism, I have learned the importance of self-respect and how it alters the quality of one's work. Since I was a young girl, I have had the habit of putting others in front of myself. As children, we're told to "treat others how we'd want to be treated" and to be respectful and kind to those we meet, but we're never told that indulging too much in this behavior is a flaw within itself. I have the habit of going above and beyond for the benefit of other people. While this isn't necessarily a bad quality, it often results in me putting my needs second. In a way, I guess I could define this quality as a lack of self respect and self worth.
For one of my courses this semester, we were instructed to do a semester-long PR campaign on a local business. When I went to talk to the business owner I decided to work with, the first thing I did was show him my course syllabus. I explained that my work for him would be based upon my course work criteria, but he would receive ample public relations material in turn. While concocting my PR plan, he and I devised numerous tactics to get the business off the ground. Because he was a small business owner, he didn't have the time and resources to do even the most basic tasks himself and somehow, I got roped into conceptualizing, organizing, and running many events. At first, he promised to pay me for my work, but soon he stopped altogether. Basically, I was doing all the PR for his company through blogs, press releases, event planning,and thensome. I was not receiving pay or academic credit for my help and I would feel guilty if I didn't perform up to par for my free labor. I would put up to 20 hours a week doing things for his business for nothing. As a result, some of my school work began piling up, many of my personal relationship crumbled, and I found myself in a difficult position. I was being taken advantage of. I really wanted to do my best, but it came at a cost- what was best for me.
The whole campaign was a tremendous learning experience. I learned that while professionalism is important, my needs are essential too. I learned that I have talents and skills that can help businesses, but I need to be treated like a human being for offering them. Now, I feel like the experience has showed me that I deserve to treat myself better and while it's nice to do good for others, I could only be at my best if I myself am happy and self-respected.
I think that since graduating high school and beginning to study journalism, empathy and kindness have become more valuable to me. I don't think I was necessarily a bad person before, but there was often times when I would find myself being selfish, or unkind, or unforgiving. I still have instances of that, but being able to live away from home has really shown me how important your relationships with people are. All people. The people around you help shape your experiences, and it just makes sense to try to treat them the way you want to be treated. Moreover, in this world it is essential that we work together. It is hard to survive alone. Journalists take on the job of informing others of important news, and telling people's stories; if you don't care about who or what you're writing about, what's the point? I have become more open as a journalist and more accepting of others. I've also become more accepting of myself and more accepting of the fact that life is tragic and hard and beautiful and free to do whatever you like with. I choose compassion- that's the kind of person I want to be.
Since high school, one of the biggest values to become important to me have been wealth and family. Not in the sense of necessarily needing excess of it, but in having enough money to sustain myself and my family, the people I love and care about who have also taken care of me. When I first started college at Hofstra University I was a theatre major because I wanted to be an actor and I didn't mind necessarily struggling for years of my life economically to pursue my passion, but during my first year of college and having a job and a girlfriend who I cared very much about I understood the practicality of having money and that I want it not so much for myself, but for the people close to me so I can take care of them. And that became very important to me, thus why I switched to public relations. Since I began training studying that, I've learned about some of the unfortunate and unethical things that people in this practice have done in attempts to be successful, and I will aim my hardest to be as successful as possible but I believe that can be done honestly with ethical behaviors. In fact, I believe we should be pushing ourselves to live in an age where that sort of behavior will make you successful as well as improve the standards of the practice. If I had to label a virtue that I've learned in studying public relations (and journalism as they intertwine) it would be making a difference, in really considering the implications of what behavior in the field may accomplish both positively and negatively. The media, or any sort of attention of the public's eye holds a certain power and it needs to be carefully considered so the actions may hold the best results in practicality.
A value that has moved up in my list since high school is definitely honesty. I was best friends with a group of girls who would lie to me and hang out without me, which made me very suspicious of people. I realized that if they had simply told me the truth, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache, which is why I always appreciate honesty nowadays. Since entering my major of media management, I have realized it is crucial to be skeptical of many things in the media. It is not a good idea to always trust the news and social media sites, because a lot of people like to run their mouths, or publish false articles for the fame and glory. I guess you could say I take the news with a grain of salt, because no one truly knows what actually happened at some events unless you were there.
I have always valued honesty, but since high school, it has become much more of a priority. I found that if I needed to, I could quickly and effectively fabricate a white lie within seconds. I wouldn’t think twice about it. But when other people would tell even the smallest of lies and I found out they were untrue, I didn’t appreciate it. I believed it to be somewhat insulting that they didn’t tell me the truth in the first place. Since, I have been much more understanding of people that do not like hearing even the smallest of lies. With lies, there is always a different story than the original to remember the details of. Truth is fulfilling and rewarding to oneself. Even now, when others tell white lies in everyday life, or the media, it is always recognized and acknowledged as a horrible fault. When one of the news stations made a mistake, or “told a lie,” during the Boston bombings, everyone receiving their news from that station was extremely unhappy with the findings that it was a mistake. Although the station may have thought it was the truth at the time, it did not turn out to be the truth, which caused uproar. This shows that honesty is extremely important to value.
Throughout your whole life, you are always going to come across change. Another side of change brings in the factor of growing up as well. Since high school, I have changed a lot as a person. Maturity level, understanding responsibilities, and going to college to live on my own were big changes for me that I had to go through and develop these virtues/values. Since I began my career path in the journalism field, it has also brought upon change for me because it opened my eyes to a whole new different aspect on what journalism is all about and what our media out there is truly trying to accomplish. Ethics is a huge value I have learned to bring into my life more, because ethics is something you encounter every day. What brought all these changes into my life, is actually life itself. You continue to live every day and there will always be something new throughout your day that you will have to endure.
I feel like my personal experiences have not only changed my values and priorities, but have changed me as a person as well. In high school, as a rebellious teenager, I never really put much thought into the "family first" motto and I was resentful toward my parents. Losing my father at 17 made me value my family so much more, and now my family is my top priority. Since I've begun to train as a journalist, especially in the Media Law and Media Ethics classes, I've learned that it is a career that can sometimes lead to lying, cheating, and other unethical practices. Also, looking at examples of the media today, there is a general lack of integrity that gives journalism a bad reputation. I've learned that it is important to strive for good work that has integrity and truth. It is the journalist's duty to seek the truth and report it accurately, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I made a promise to myself Sophomore year that I would never write a story for any publication about the Kardashian family.
The experiences i've gone through since high school have had a drastic impact on the person I am now. Once you break out of the high school bubble, reality tends to come crashing down on you in one form or another. You realize that the world isn't such a simple place. Back then, I was unmotivated and usually would coast by, settling for the minimum amount of success and gratification. As time went on I realized that such tendencies cause you to sink into a hole. There was times where I was in a bad place; I was unhappy and couldn't really see the good in anything. I complained a lot and would blame other things for my shortcomings. It usually goes hand-in-hand with a negative mindset and a feeling that you'll never get ahead. I slowly realized through years of "trying" and failing, that keeping and open-minded, positive attitude and working hard to complete your goals allows you to exceed your own expectations and feel much better about yourself. Being positive and keeping a good attitude towards any situation usually enriches the experience, and allows you to feel like you gave your part and gained something from the scenario. It's hard in todays world to do that sometimes (the last few weeks of class has come to mind, constantly being bombarded with negative emotions and events through media) but I've learned that sometimes you have to take a step away from whats getting you down and embrace what makes you feel good.
I cant say I’ve had a cathartic moment since attending college per say. The priorities of values can change daily or monthly depending on the various situations going on around me. After being in the working world, and interning I realized sometimes, more often than not your values will not line up with others around you. The most profound moment which I’ve experienced thus far, is when I was interning. There was a lack of work for me to complete, forcing me to sit there and surf the web, etc. When I asked my supervisor what else I could do, she responded, “ what are you so worried about? You’re getting paid for it.” I found it extremely unethical to charge a company for time, when in fact your not helping them at all. At the same time, I was thinking “ well, they hired me, it’s not my fault I’m not getting trained.” I made the conscious decision to “check-out” on my timesheet and not charge the company for the time I was there and not doing any of their work. This reconfirmed the idea that you cannot trust those around you, not even the ones above you or who are supposed to be “mentors.” As for how this relates to my future profession, it’s to remain indifferent and think for myself, no matter who is directing the orders.
I have always considered myself a fairly ethical person; from an early age my parents instilled in me the importance of hard work, social responsibility, and humanity. When I came to college I promised myself that I would not let those values slip, and I am proud to say that for the most part I have been true to my beliefs. The one thing I waver on is understanding people around me. I have a very hard time dealing with disrespect and since coming to college I have encountered more disrespectful people than I would have thought possible while in high school. I guess you can say my idealism changed a bit, and now I know better than to expect the best from everyone. I'm not cynical, but I've learned that not everyone is as honest as we would all hope, and it has made me place a higher value on honesty, I appreciate it more now than I ever have.
As a journalist I have yet to face a challenge that makes me question my core values, but I'm still learning. As I continue to study journalism I value passion above all else. This may sound strange, but I find that the best writers, and the best sources come from passion, and I have learned to look for it whenever I can.
I'd like to preface my answer to this question by making the following assertion: I became a PR major because of circumstances that forced me to make the best I possibly could of my "talents and fate." By my 2nd year of college, I had become dissatisfied with my original major to the point of complete despair. So I took the advice of others who suggested I might do better in a writing-based major. Being a publicist was never a lifelong dream of mine.
That aside, I'd like to think that my PR training has helped me on my journey towards an ethical social identity. The virtue I chose to address in this response is the virtue of genuine effort in the face of an easy way out, which usually requires a person to prioritize and make some difficult decisions about what is important and what is not.
Since high school, I have slowly developed this quality. Before I came to SUNY New Paltz, I felt like I had a lot of obligations to people/communities and time commitments, but those were nothing compared to what I have now. I recall being overwhelmed in my senior year when I had trouble balancing a 15-20 hr/week sales associate job, four academic classes, and intensive dance training and rehearsals that were mandatory for me during high school. Succeeding at work and academics seemed much more important to me than dancing, especially since I derived little internal satisfaction from dance by that point. So I decided to slack off a lot in dance, and focus mostly on passing my regents and proving myself to my managers. My efforts in these chosen areas really paid off, but I still carry a lot of guilt about not making the most of the dance training I received for free from LaGuardia High School.
In my first two years at SUNY New Paltz, I learned how difficult it is to succeed in all 5 3-credit classes. I've found that most successful students resort to light cheating on exams or completely BS-ing projects and papers — two things I am historically against. To avoid these practices, I have repeatedly sacrificed a grade in a GE course to do well in a course I had a genuine interest in. Unlike in public high school, each course had a dollar amount attached to it, so I felt the guilt of slacking off a little even more than I had in previous years. One semester, I decided to take 4 classes instead of 5. My GPA was significantly higher, and I feel I learned a lot that semester. I don't see the value in studying something unless I can devote adequate thought and attention to it, and hopefully retain some information. Unfortunately, one cannot graduate from SUNY New Paltz in 4 years taking 12 credits/semester, but that's besides the point.
I didn't declare myself a PR major until Spring 2012. In order to complete my degree by the end of this semester, I must pass 6 classes for a total of 19 credits. Unlike with my previous major, I actually enjoy some of these subjects and love to bother my peers in other majors by talking at them about things I learned in class. I'm also part of an organization that highly encourages members to participate in a lot of extracurricular activities.
(continued) Needless to say, I've found this semester incredibly taxing. Sometimes, the only thing that motivates me to keep going is the haunting memory of working full-time as a shoe salesperson over vacations. Despite all the ethical dilemmas attached to a professional career in PR, it is endlessly preferable to being a retail worker. I genuinely believe that I've done the best I could in all my courses this semester, devoted a reasonable amount of time to the sorority. I prioritized the order in which I put effort into my courses by how much my professors demanded of me, relative to how much the course contributed to my optimism about becoming a professional and my motivation to learn. I've never considered myself an "indomitable striver [or] overacheiver," but sometimes when I hear myself talk about theories of persuasion or tv in american culture, I feel that I sound like a person neurotically obsessed with school (I'm not). Over the course of my training as a PR major, I've learned that you can't just blow off what isn't a priority to you just because you feel it subtracts from your ability to fully devote yourself to what is. Furthermore, if you must abandon an obligation to make time for a more important one, you must do so tactfully, but also assertively enough to make it clear that your other obligations truly matter. I suppose what happened to bring about this change in my work ethic was the realization that my whole education will be a complete waste if I can't graduate with a degree, and in order to attain that degree, I must not only work hard, but also efficiently. And when I do graduate, even if I don't do so with an impressive GPA — I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I never cheated or lied to get where I am today.
The experiences in life definitely affect and shape the values that one has. This has changed for me significantly as I have moved from high school onto college. In high school, I greatly valued the characteristics of being nice , being independent, being friendly and liked by others. I made it a point to strive to be friends with as many people as I could, and looked for compassion and kindness in those people in return as well.
Although I still hold those values today and look to surround myself with people who do as well, my perspective has changed. I have learned through experience that you cannot always be the nice person and sometimes you have to make decision that will cause people not to agree with you and get along all the time, which is okay. Being President of my sorority, there are many times I do not agree with people and decisions that I make that might not sit well with others. In the end if I believe it is what is best, then it is a decision that has to be made. It could have un-intentional repercussions for others such as fining someone for inappropriate behavior, or instilling consequences when others do not follow through with their responsibilities. Although this are not considered nice actions, if they are actions I know that I am responsible for taking, my college experience has taught me that it is okay to go about it, as long at it is done in a respectful manner.
What has stayed the same is the value I place on truthfulness, and has further been encouraged from high school to college. In high school, I valued honesty and telling the truth because of relations throughout my family. My parents divorced because of lies my mother told, which ultimately has led to my family having to move and strained relations between members. After studying journalism and public relations, moral and ethical issues have encouraged and maintained the faith I place in the value of truth. Things are often embellished and exaggerated and I believe although it may not be ethical at times it’s a part of life. However, telling a straight up lie to others can have an impact on people in ways you could never imagine or foresee in the long run, which is why I place such high value in honesty. Once you break honesty, it affects many other values such as trust.
Trust is incredibly important not only in the personal aspect of everyone’s life but in journalism as well. People need to be able to trust the sources they are getting their news and information from, trust the people telling them and trust that it is being presented and portrayed in the right way. Dishonesty in journalism and PR will ruin this trust and credibility and every incident has a last effect on the industry.
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