What case is your group doing? What is the major ethical issue you will analyze? Why is it significant? How will you approach the case (Potter Box, TARES model, Rawls' Veil of Ignorance, professional code, right-need-want to know, etc.)?
You response is due Mon., Oct 28, by 4 p.m.
Teaching Notes
You must become the flame on the candle. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Monday, October 21, 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.
15 comments:
I will analyze the case "Hollywood's Passion for Guns Remains Undimmed" by the NY Times. I will do a paper on the issues of how guns and violence are portrayed in the media, more specifically film. I feel like it is significant because it desensitizes us to real violence and crime. I will approach the issue using the TARES model.
I am covering the case pertaining to the NFL ending its affiliation with "Frontline." The two entities were working together to produce a two-part investigative project about how the NFL handles player's head injuries. "The divorce came a week after the N.F.L. voiced its displeasure with the documentary at a lunch between league and ESPN executives, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation." The NFL is pressuring the Frontline producers to cancel the show because they feel it puts their league in a bad light.
I feel that this is a significant topic because of how important the NFL and is to the American public. These athletes are cared about and all over the media, and if their lack of safety is being brushed under the rug in order to not lose any support (or $$), it should be exposed.
As of now, I am planning on using the Potter Box to approach the issue, although that may change (or I will combine with another approach) as I delve into the project.
Nick Fodera and I have decided to partner up for this proect. With our production skills, we anticipate on creating a multimedia project in which we analyze the issues discussed in the article "N.F.L. Pressure Said to Lead ESPN to Quit Film Project." This article discusses the N.F.L.'s attempt to stop ESPN from producing a "Frontline" documentary about the health hazards of football. It is significant because more and more football players are getting head injuries each year, and for the N.F.L. to interfere makes this an ethical case. Nick and I are not sure exactly which theory model we will use. However, we are debating between the TARES model and the Potter Box.
The case I am doing is the article regarding the media frenzy surrounding the birth of the Royal baby, and the extensive efforts media outlets now go through for such news, despite the invasion of privacy. Essentially, I believe this one article touches on a larger issue within our media today, which would be using people, stories or events and capitalizing on them. This story is a perfect example of the extreme ethical issue our society now has with differentiating between the right, need and want to know things – and the difference between the three, which is what we will use to evaluate whether or not the excessive reporting and media coverage of this event is appropriate or ethical. As the 24-hour news generation continues, this issue will become more and more significant as news outlets are constantly becoming more desperate and persistent for news stories, despite whether or not that information is their ethical responsibility to report to the public, and is often times at the expense of an individual’s privacy.
I was going to do the NFL case, but since all the other guys in class are going to do it, I'm going after the South Dakota Indian Foster Care pileup. I plan to apply the Potter Box to the case, as on the whole the case is a matter of journalistic integrity and I feel that the Potter Box is far and away the best method that we can use to dissect matters of ethics in journalism. I'm doing this because I get a real kick out of contributors to major, self righteous media outlets get smacked upside the head with the realization that all of their reporters are not beacons of honesty. Remember when that one writer BS'd half of his story on the Apple plant in China?
I'll do my project on NPR's South Dakota Indian Foster Care issue. Citing epistemic responsibility and ethical journalism as the main issues, I'll use a combination of the Potter Box, the SPJ Code of Ethics, and the concepts of "Truth, Truthfulness, and Truthiness" to analyze the case. I feel as though this article is especially significant because it deals with the number one priority of an ethical journalist: to report the truth clearly and concisely. Also, I feel that since the issue is with NPR, which I've noticed is often viewed as an excellent source of news, the case is that much more powerful, and can show how just one journalist slipping up can mess with the entire system. Also, the Foster Care story attempts to deal with an issue that the article itself creates with its slanted facts (a starting point for the Potter Box) and misleading assumptions. Altogether, this is truthiness in practice.
Me and Carly are doing the Chicago Sun Times photographer layoff case study.
The major ethical issue is how the publication is focusing more on revenue instead of publishing quality work, in this case by laying off photographers they will no longer release the best photos/videos they can.
It's significant because it incorporates the changing layout of print and digital media. It shows how more companies are depending more on freelance work instead of hiring part time or full time employees.
We will be using the Potter box; facts, values, principles and loyalties.
I am working with Brittany and we are doing the story about survivor. We will be analyzing the way the media reenforces gender stereotypes and their roles in our society with these shows. The host and the way the characters are portrayed in the show is something we intend to focus on.
We feel that this issue is important because the media has so much power in our society today and the fact that these gender role stereotypes are such a theme in this show is not a reflection of the times that we live in. We have decided to use Rawl's veil of ignorance right now but that could change as we look more into the topic.
Maddie, Melanie, Erica
Our group will be analyzing the article on the racial implications of Miley Cryus’ recent performance at the VMAs. We will be focusing on her exploitation of black female bodies, and ‘ghetto’ antics. This discussion will illustrate the intersectionality of oppression within society. We will discuss race, gender, and class in relation to subjective systems of power. In using the potter box, we will show how Miley’s performance aids in further perpetuating those systems of power, that so many people are attempting to break down. Also, how the prevalence of white artists incorporating their ignorant understanding of ‘black culture’ helps to maintain the internalization of racist and sexist attitudes.
The case I will be looking at is from the NPR story about the Red Cross urging video game producers to place penalties in their games for committing war crimes. This PR campaign is significant because it is discussing whether laws, and morals from the real world are applicable in a virtual world. These public relation employees are currently trying to sign on producers to make these changes in their future game. I will be using the TARES model to show that this is an ethical use of PR.
The case I am examining is the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Rolling Stone cover. The major ethical issue of the case is a journalist’s responsibility for the public’s right-to-know (and want-to-know). A large argument in the case is an apparent conflict of interest in the cover image being selected for sales purposes. Choosing an image of the bomber has allegedly made Jahar out to be a “rock star.” In this way, Rolling Stone has apparently crossed some moral boundary in presenting the bomber’s face on the cover.
The article actually does a good job at shining a light on Jahar’s life, especially his influences in the two years leading up to the attack. I agree with Ian Crouch in the New Yorker about the article’s importance: “The facts of his life are important, the larger social implications of his biography are important—and so this story has the potential to be a valuable contribution to the public record and to the general understanding of one of the most serious incidents of domestic terrorism in American history.” I hope the article made more people read the story than otherwise would have.
I will approach the case using the SPJ Code of Ethics and the public’s right-to-know.
I will be analyzing the article on the media getting George Zimmerman’s story wrong from the start. The major ethical issue I will examine is the lack of fulfillment of epistemic responsibility by journalists. The media’s portrayal in the case of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin shaped the public’s perspective, especially on Zimmerman. Also, due to competition to get the scoop and publish a juicy story, media outlets released edited/false information, which apologies could not erase. I will use the professional code of ethics when approaching this case (SPJ).
NPR reported on a case where the Red Cross requested that video games that take place in a war setting include sanctions (loss of points, etc.) for actions taken by players in the game that if committed in the physical war itself are war crimes. Because this is a public relations issue i will use the TARES model to show whether their campaign in advocating for this change is ethical.
For my paper I want to approach the Royal Baby story as it's the sort of story that fails to match up with the information that is truly right, need or right-to-know. I want to explore why the time, energy and resources from that time period were used and how they were justified, particularly on American soil where the "feel good" escapist nature of the story would likely have a lesser effect. I want to explore how these sort of stories, the tabloid stories, serve an escapist purpose that seems counterintuitive to our goals of creating a truly informed populace. I think it has plenty to do with the mission shifting from one of information to entertainment.
I am analyzing the Rolling Stone cover that features Tsarnaev using the Potter Box and will discuss whether placing a criminal on the cover where celebrities are traditionally idolized is ethical.
The Hollywoodization and drama surrounding crimes in the media has escalated. It is a significant portion of the news and I feel its treatment should be examined because of the spotlight on criminals often ends up putting them on a pedestal rather than focusing on the crime and ways to prevent future, similar crimes. As of now, I will approach the case using the Potter Box, although I may use other methods in addition to the Potter Box.
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