Below is a poem that describes an actual incident. Applying Gardner's definition of "good work" as found in Holly Stocking's chapter, is Meghan doing good work now? Do you believe she is capable of doing good work as a media professional once she graduates? Why or why not? How does her behavior measure against the code of journalism or PR ethics?
Respond by 4 p.m., Monday, Sept. 16. No exceptions.
TO MEGHAN, ASLEEP IN ETHICS CLASS
As if what people are is all they’ll ever be
you close your eyes
and it’s suddenly night everywhere and always
nothing can reach you not even
the agitated ghosts of ancient philosophers
swirling around our hot basement classroom
but to you it’s just words love death etc.
so why wake you to see the firelight
beating frantically on the walls of Plato’s cave
when your sleeping face is beautifully composed
like that of a fairy-tale princess
with a piece of poisoned apple caught in her throat
Teaching Notes
You must become the flame on the candle. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
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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.
27 comments:
Based on the chapter, Meghan is not doing good work now. She is apathetic and ignorant, not working to improve or understand her profession. She is not being ethically responsible, even if she manages to earn high marks.
However, by the end of the poem, I believe the presence of the poison apple suggests she may awaken or be saved from a life of ignorance. I believe once she graduates, hypothetically, real-life situations could spark the practice of and curiosity of an ethical career. It may not, however, be an immediate change.
Megan's behavior does not measure up to the code of journalism ethics. The fact that she sleeps now, ignorant to the professor, may imply that she will not give sources the respect and listening they deserve. She may not consider the long-term consequences of her actions and could put her sources in uncomfortable or harmful situations that could have been avoided.
According to Gardner’s definition of “good work,” Meghan is doing poor work. Meghan’s work is both morally and technically poor. Sleeping in class is refusing to learn even after making the effort to go to class. Morally, sleeping in class shows a lack of interest in knowledge and truth seeking. Technically, it results in less educated writing and unethical work due to inaccuracies, underdeveloped stories, poor detail, and an overall shoddier quality of work compared to work that is both morally and technically excellent.
There is no way Meghan is capable of doing good work as a media professional. For starters, if she is too tired to stay awake in class then she will never be able to cope with the long hours in media professions. Her tired, apathetic mood is costing her valuable education in ethics that she desperately needs. Without this education her value for ethics will be limited, and her work will likely jeopardize her integrity as well as her publisher’s credibility (if it’s ever published).
Meghan’s behavior is counter to the SPJ’s Code of Ethics. Rather than seeking the truth in class, she rests in the dark void of “night” in her sleep. This also voids her accountability for the information of the class discussion. Because of this she will have to become dependent on someone else for the day’s notes (if she even wants them). Not to mention her sleeping in class is probably distracting to other students (does she snore?), resulting in a poorer education for everyone.
According to Gardner’s definition, Meghan is not doing good work now. She is not being socially responsible nor is she producing work that is excellent in quality. Meghan is choosing to sleep in class, which is both morally and technically wrong. She is disrespecting the teacher as well as the profession by taking the class for granted.
I do not think Meghan is capable of doing good work as a media professional once she graduates. If she can’t manage to stay awake during a class, then I do not see how she could stay awake and be an active worker for 8+ hours a day. Also, while sleeping in class she missed a lot of important information and will probably make more unethical decisions. Therefore, her lack of knowledge could hurt her career and credibility.
Meghan’s behavior does not measure well against the code of journalism ethics. The SPJ code states the role of a journalist is to seek the truth and report it. Although she is in a classroom setting, she is not able to report anything because she is asleep. Meghan is not paying attention and won’t be able to know what happened in class unless informed by another classmate, but she will never know if she receives the truth. In addition, the code of journalism explains that a journalist should diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoings. However, Meghan is the one committing the wrongdoing, so how could she be capable of reporting it?
Based on Gardner's definition of good work, Meghan was not doing good what she is supposed to do in order to show a willingness to learn and a desire to improve. If that were the case, she would be more alert and motivated in class rather than asleep and disinterested.
It is possible that Meghan can do good work once she graduates but she cannot wait until she graduates to change her behavior in an attempt to give off a more focused positive vibe. Meghan would have to stop sleeping in class altogether and change her attitude so that she is alert and apart of class. By her doing this she will establish good habits that can follow her once she leaves the college.
Meghan's behavior does not measure up to the code of journalism ethics because she is not doing all that is in her power to seek the truth. Class is one of the main places where the truth is presented and to not be interested enough to go out and seek it, does not measure up with the ethics of journalism.
I think that most ethical issues center around the greater good, and if that is the case then creating a good example for those around you would be the good of almost every situation. Sleeping in class and cheating on exams are both real good examples of really bad examples for others.
Cheating, like sleeping in class, does harm others not because of ACTIVE sabotage but because your poor attention or effort is a bad example for those around you and a bad decision for your own reputation.
Frankly, I've been told cheating is so bad for so long that I mostly forgot why it is other than the idea that your success would cut out better more honest work. I think that's what it is. Your motivation not being totally honest ruins other more worthy opponents.
The chapter suggests that the character in Absence of Malice must have not gone to journalism school or had been asleep. This is a good point, in order to do good work you must pay attention. I think Meghan is being ignorant to her surroundings and not being a true journalist. A journalist should always be alert and paying attention, even in class. I also think the chapter points out other concepts to good work, such as not doing undercover work unless everything else as failed. This relates back to the article we read last class about the nursing home. Good work is about having good quality and good ethics in your work, not just one or the other. If Meghan continues to snooze through class she will not acquire the knowledge to do either.
From what I read in Holly Stocking's chapter about good work, it seems that Meghan is not doing good work. Good work is defined as, "labor that earns high marks both technically and morally...it is work that is both excellent in quality and socially responsible."
Meghan is asleep in class, not paying attention showing that she doesn't give a care in the world. If she actually cared, she'd be awake, paying attention and doing good work. Even though she isn't actually out in the world and reporting, she is in a classroom setting where she will learn how to do good work. If she doesn't pay attention in class now, what makes us think she'll be able to do her actual job outside of class? Like you mentioned in class, if you can't do the work in class now, you won't be able to do it you graduate. So no, I don't think Meghan will be able to work as a media professional, unless she changes her ways in class and actually stays awake.
Meghan's behavior does not measure up to the code of journalism ethics because again, she's sleeping in class not paying attention and not doing her job. The SPJ code of ethics says that a journalists' job is to seek truth and report it but Meghan is too busy sleeping in class to even join discussion and "report".
If I was to apply Gardner's definition of "Good Work" I would see that unfortunately, Meghan's situation doesn't necessarily mean she can be a successful journalist. She isn't being very ethically responsible by just showing up to class, falling asleep and not absorbing the material. Just what exactly are you getting out of the class if you don't remember most of it, or if it doesn't stick?
We can extract from the definition of "Good Work" a sense that it cannot and in a sense, must not be achieved if one is unwilling to sacrifice and woodshed in order to become ethically responsible, the very key to existence in journalism.
If it were any other class, then perhaps you can still be good at what you do if you get good grades, even if you never show up (Lord knows I've been guilty of this very same thing early on in my college career), but as you said, in the case of journalism and media ethics, bullshitters need not apply. you either commit 100 percent or not at all. Only then can one learn the tenets of being ethically responsible and thus, do "Good Work"
I would agree that Meghan's work is not "good work" in terms of being technically flawed. Sleeping in class shows a lack of capability and is often a nuisance to the professor. But, I do not believe right away that her work is morally dubious. Her sleeping, while it may be annoying, does't hurt anyone but herself. Maybe Meghan works three jobs to be able to even go to classes; maybe her technical flaws are really societal or financial flaws. Maybe Meghan's devotion and passion may be more noticeable when she's in the field, reporting or interviewing. Maybe she stays awake digging up sources and stories all night.
In this specific situation, Meghan does not live up to the Journalism code of Ethics. But to say whether or not she can do good work after she graduates depends on so many more factors than just dozing off.
This doesn't rid Meghan of her technical flaws, regardless of their origins. In a utilitarian sense, Meghan's habits do not constitute good journalism ethics. But i'd rather not stray into tunnel vision.
I hope the poison apple in her throat is herself awake, waiting to take in all she has missed. In the end, I'm giving Meghan the benefit of the doubt.
According to this chapter, Meghan is not doing good work. Its definition among psychologists Gardner, Csikszentmihalyu, and Damon, good work "consists of labor that earns high marks technically and morally". Falling asleep in class will not earn her high marks in either. Morally, she is disrespecting the professor and her chosen career path by disregarding the learning process. Technically, she most likely will not do good work because she was mentally absent while she was supposed to be learning what can only help her in the future in her career. Her behavior does not hold up with the Code of Ethics because she is not seeking anything in general by being asleep in class, especially not truth. Although she is physically there, she is clearly not mentally there and it is impossible to report the truth when she was not present to seek it.
Meghan, as described in the poem, fails to fulfill any of the necessary requirements described by Gardner in regards to doing "good work." She is uninvolved and lacking the drive to intertwine excellence with an engagement, making it impossible for anyone to consider her work as anything other than shit.
"As if what people are is all they'll ever be." That line, as well as the rest of the stanza, has a strong relation with the conversations we have been having in class about conditioning ourselves with good habits. If Meghan sleeps through class and fails learn and become well versed in her field now, how will she ever be capable of producing good work in the future? Her bad habits will stick.
To answer Howie's seemingly rhetorical question, no, Meghan's attitude and behavior clearly does not measure up to the code of journalism ethics. If she fails to learn the established guidelines that have been adopted by her predecessors and colleagues she will not be able to work accordingly with her field's code of ethics.
The case may be different for that of PR flacks..
Meghan, by no measurement, is doing good work. She is not being morally proficient (someone is paying for college, her or her parents or the state, and she is failing to fulfill her duties as a student who has spent either her or someone else's money to attend class) and she is not being technically proficient (she's asleep, dammit; you can't learn when you're asleep and therefore have no chance of grasping the likely valuable lesson that would increase your power of reportage and understanding of the ethics system that fuels the business.)
I don't know Meghan. I don't know if she was up late tending bar at P&G's trying to raise money for her college education or the operation or Tiny Tim, or if she was up late fighting with Steve because she set his TV on fire after the breakup. All I know is that she's asleep and doesn't have the mental fortitude or self control to keep herself awake or check out of class early as not to disrupt things. I can't really tell if she'll be able to go far in journalism, but I can say this: If she wants to get into the field, at least for the first few years she'll probably have to cover stuff like town board, planning board, and zoning board meetings. And if she can't stay awake through those meetings for a part of her career, she's boned.
And you can't really measure what she's doing against the SPJ code because she's not being a journalist. She's being a sleepy, lazy kid - but I can't help but think that she has no game. I mean, I only ever fell asleep in class once in 11th grade in the 9th period after an all-nighter.
Based on Gardner's definition of good work, Meghan is not doing good work. Even though she went to her media ethics class, falling asleep in it defeats the purpose of going since she is not learning anything.
She will most likely continue to not do good work as a media professional when she graduates. Old habits die hard and if she is slacking off now she will probably continue to slack off later. Media ethics is a very important part of being a media professional, and if she slept through this class she did not get everything she could have out of it. This will affect her later on in her career when she is faced with a media ethics problem that was probably covered during the class she slept through.
Meghan's behavior does not measure up to the code of journalism ethics, because there is no way she can be seeking the truth while sleeping through class.
I think it is obvious to state that Meghan is not doing good work. According to Holly Stocking's chapter, good work "consists of labor that earns high marks both technically and morally," also known as work that is "both excellent in quality and socially responsible (p. 50). If you have not been warned yet, be aware that sleeping in class does not classify as "good work." It also does not measure to the ethics code of journalism. Meghan's actions show how careless irresponsible, and potentially arrogant she is to her studies. In fact, if she continues to act in such a manner then I would guess that it will be more difficult for her to do good work once she graduates school.
To me, the poison apple symbolizes an alternative approach to a situation. In this poem, Meghan chose to differentiate herself from everyone else by sleeping. And so the apple symbolizes those actions taken. Overall, I would say Meghan has a lot of work to do before she will present "good work."
From Gardner's chapter definition of "good work" and the poem of Meghan sleeping in class she is doing poor work. Her lack of care and effort for her profession is poor and shows her to not be ethically responsible. I do not think she will be able to perform good work as a media professional once she graduates because if she doesn't care now why would she in the future. She will not be properly educated in my opinion to do good work. Being that she has a lack for passion i feel that her behavior does not measure up to the journalism code of ethics. If she is careless and unprofessional in one class what will she be like when it comes to covering a story? It is almost inferred from the poem that Meghan will cut corners and do whatever she has to to come up with a story. Even if she showed some effort but didn't do a good job reporting wise she would be showing attempts at good work, but sleeping in class portrays Meghan as unprofessional.
According to Gardner, good work must employ “high marks both technically and morally.” It is very obvious Megan is not doing good work. Even if she maintains high marks in her GPA (technically) she is not upholding a moral standard of work. She simply doesn’t care and is clearly uninterested in the subject of ethics. She is measuring sleep as more important than engaging in class.
Personally, I do not believe Megan will be capable of good work once she graduates. She views heavily weighted concepts, as mere words. This is evident in the line, “but to you its just words love death etc.” These are not just words, they are notions one must understand in order to be a moral and socially responsible person. Love is infinite, and real. As death is final, and relevant.
The journalism code of ethics states one must seek the truth and report it. Megan has no concept of seeking any truth. A journalist must always question everything they see and are told. Megan does not possess this quality, which is an absolute essential trait. A person doesn’t just wake up with an inquiring mind after graduation. In terms of PR code of ethics she is failing to uphold the responsibility of specialized knowledge. She is completely negligent in her desire to obtain a well rounded education of ethics. Ethics must be thought about, debated, and understood for someone to practice professionally and produced good work.
Meghan's work, if held to Gardner's standards, is far from "good." As others have mentioned, Meghan's lack of regard for her fundamental responsibility as a student would hint that the same irresponsible, lack of regard would leak into her journalistic/media future.
Though college offers a time to make mistakes and seek opportunities for growth, wasting the opportunity to gain certain tools that will benefit one's future in her field is unfortunate. Sure, she is capable of doing good work in the future, but she would have better chances of being a good worker if she started practicing that sort of work ethic sooner.
Carelessness in class and disrespect toward an instructor is an unprofessional practice. That sort of behavior can fester into a habit after a few too many occasions where it goes unchecked. That can ultimately lead to creating a student armed with the expensive degree and little else.
Meghan is definitely not doing "good work" as defined by Gardner, since she is by no means engaged in the work that she is supposed to be doing. She is refusing to learn in a class that is particularly important in her profession. She is also being irresponsible in that sleeping in class is a distraction to other students, and disrespectful to the professor. In my opinion, she would have been better off skipping class for the sake of everyone else.
Her behavior goes against journalism and PR ethics because both require the professional to work diligently and pay close attention to detail.
Journalism is a career that requires attentiveness, even in situations that are not particularly interesting. What if she is sent on assignment to some dull town hall meeting that she has no interest in? Will she fall asleep then? What we don't know, based on the poem, is whether or not Meghan has done this before or ever will again. I don't believe myself or anyone else can say whether or not she is capable of doing good work as a media professional based on the fact that she once fell asleep in ethics class.
The poem "To Megan Asleep in Ethics Class" is based on actual events of a students sleeping in class, missing out on learning about information for her potential career. It's true that some students do this as well as not even show up to class.According to Howard Gardner, good work consists of labor that earns high marks both technically and morally. Although some students are able to earn high marks without even going to class regularly, this is never true for a media student, or any dedicated student that is looking for more than just a decent grade.
Maybe this character Megan knows how to get assignments done. But they won't be anything of worth if she cannot even stay awake in class. She's not doing good work now, and will have an even harder time trying to do good work in her future. She chose not to pay attention and because of that she won't know how to get proper work completed in both excellence of quality and social responsibility. The first line of the poem reads, "As if people are is all they'll ever be." Megan has no means to grow because she chose to not be existent in the early stages of learning about her potential career. This behavior doesn't measure up to journalism and PR codes of ethic. First of all she never created internal ethics and social responsibility for herself as a professional, and her being passive and sleeping in class may lead to deception by omission in her future works. She also will lack detail and accurate information. Lastly Megan will not exercise prosecutorial editing because she won't include stewardship as a basis. These factors will set Megan up for being a lazy, messy, and ethically wrong journalist.
According to the definition of “good work” which Gardner gives, Meghan is not exhibiting good work. Right now, as she sleeps through class she is not putting forth any effort, and things which could touch her and have immeasurable meaning in her life turn into “words, love, death, etc.”. While a student is often capable of earning an “A” in a class he or she sleeps through, the moral standard is not being met, the learning is often not happening, even if the class is being checked off as “completed” on a progress report. Morally, Meghan is cheating herself as well as probably insulting her professor. She is not being responsible; she is not producing high quality, excellent work. She is losing her ability to do these things with each time she decides to rest her eyes and fall into the night which is described in the poem. When she graduates, she will be capable of doing “good work”. This is true because she is capable of doing good work now; it is just that in her ignorance she chooses not to. When she wakes up metaphorically, she will be capable of doing good work, she just needs to wake up or she never will.
According to the definition of “good work” which Gardner gives, Meghan is not exhibiting good work. Right now, as she sleeps through class she is not putting forth any effort, and things which could touch her and have immeasurable meaning in her life turn into “words, love, death, etc.”. While a student is often capable of earning an “A” in a class he or she sleeps through, the moral standard is not being met, the learning is often not happening, even if the class is being checked off as “completed” on a progress report. Morally, Meghan is cheating herself as well as probably insulting her professor. She is not being responsible; she is not producing high quality, excellent work. She is losing her ability to do these things with each time she decides to rest her eyes and fall into the night which is described in the poem. When she graduates, she will be capable of doing “good work”. This is true because she is capable of doing good work now; it is just that in her ignorance she chooses not to. When she wakes up metaphorically, she will be capable of doing good work, she just needs to wake up or she never will.
Using the definition of good work as defined by the chapter Meghan is not doing good work. One of the key roles of a journalist is to be aware and observant of the stories around you. While she is sleeping there are no observations being made and thus no real progress is being made in her understanding of the world around her, and also her skills as a journalist. The easiest thing to question is about her passion for the career. It would be better(not by much) if she did not even attend class and worked on her journalistic pursuits. The act of going to class, and dismissing its importance shows her dismissal of the sphere of journalism.
I do though think there is hope that Meghan can have successful journalism career. It will definitely be harder for her since she clearly does not hold the opinions, and knowledge of her predecessors. Without taking in the lessons Meghan classes are teaching her it means that she will have to learn these things on her own which will take time. This trial and error method will be extremely difficult and if she is not invested in journalism she will surely quit. People are journalist without going to school for the subject. These people are examples of being driven on passion for journalism.
I do think her behavior breaks journalism codes of ethics because she chose to be in that class, and still does not seek truth and information while there. She has a duty to use this class as an opportunity to learn new skills and lessons. Journalists should be on the lookout for truth in all situations they are put in. Some of the best reporting could begin as a journalist waits for a doctors appointment. The literature on the waiting room table, or the signs on the wall could spur a groundbreaking story if a journalist is alert and open that there could be a story.
As obviously this poem is about a student who is asleep in ethics class, it is evident that “good work” is not being done at the present moment. Stocking defines “good work” as not only high marks technically, but also morally, and an inclusion of both excellent quality AND social responsibility. Sometimes students skip multiple classes, perform below their abilities on homework and fall asleep in class- yet still yield positive grades. These people, according to Stocking, would also not be performing to the “good work” standard, as there has to be a balance between the actual results and the personal effort and responsibility.
With this being said, I still feel Meghan can become a responsible and ethical worker in the media industry. This poem reads as a one-time work discussing a one time event. While it is surely unethical and irresponsible to fall asleep during class, it would be frivolous to jump to conclusions and judge this person’s entire character by a one-time offense. Possibly she had an incredibly stressful evening, or she is suffering from personal issues. While these are not excuses, I believe that we all owe each other a little benefit of the doubt, as we are all human and make mistakes.
However, this is not to say that Meghan is performing as per the terms in the Code of Ethics for both PR and Journalism. Most specifically, we could relate this incident to the fact that Journalists, and those in the PR field, are expected to be accountable. Accountable for their actions, their work and the people they are representing or educating. As stated in the SPJ Code of Ethics, journalists should hold themselves to the same standard they hold others, along with acting fair, courageous and honest in all of their efforts. Integrity is a huge part of the code of ethics in both of these professions, and Meghan falling asleep during her ethics class is not only ironic, as it makes a bad impression on her ethical compass, but also against the beliefs of the careers she may be looking into; as she is clearly lacking the personal responsibility to herself and her education, along with respect for her teacher and person who is trying to improve her skills for a professional life. I hope this poem was shared with the student so she would be able to understand the gravity of her small mistake, and hopefully correct it in the future.
No, Meghan is not doing good work. She's taking the class to learn, to better prepare herself for her future job in journalism, PR, the media. When she sleeps in class, she misses out on crucial information she will need to know to be able to properly do her job. As we discussed in class, in journalism, there are guidelines that need to be followed in order to be considered a professional. If Meghan continually falls asleep in class, it will hamper her ability — her professionalism.
It's also not a stretch to conclude that because Meghan isn't doing good work in class — by making the effort to learn — that she won't do good work once she graduates. If Meghan makes a habit of falling asleep in class, how responsible can she be? Given that following the proper guidelines and searching for as close to the truth as you can get is not easy, is Meghan dependable?
Based on the reading, Meghan is not doing good work. She doesn't care about her work, much less understand what it takes to be a good journalist, let alone a minimum one. I've always believed people are capable of change, but not at such a drastic level. This does not bode well for her future prospects. Sleeping through a story meeting is a surefire way to get a pink slip.
Her behavior falls far short of the code of ethics put up by public relations, much less journalism.
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