pathETHICS

*Lecture 8

This lecture took me back to my high school days. I went into this lecture expecting a lesson on what to do and what not to do in Journalism, but I came out being reminded of my year 12 Study of Religion classes. I spent an entire semester dealing with ethics and morality, so the concepts dealt with this lecture was nothing new to me. 

Deontology, Consequentialism and Virtue are pretty much what was drilled into my skull for 5 periods a week for 6 months last year, but this lecture was able to put these terms into a new context for me. A brief and boring explanation of what was meant by these terms,

Deontology - rules dictate ethics.
Consequentialism - the outcomes vs. the means. and,
Virtue - Goodness comes from good habits.

was then followed by a contextualised version of them,

Deontology - rules of Journalism tell what is an ethical and unethical story, and means of getting the story.

Consequentialism - does not matter the means in which you get the story, as long as you get the story.

Virtue - the good nature of a Journalist. This is the ethical code in which what is considered a good Journalist.

This is what I liked about a lecture, it was clear that ethics is very important within Journalism. When I, and I believe many other people, think of journalists; I think of some brown nosing annoying men and women in business clothes, shoving a microphone into the face of some person, taking things out of context and making drastic exaggerations in order to create a story out of nothing.......or as they like to call it "A Current Affair". BOOM!

I was always worried that I was going to be thrown into a dog eat dog world, where I must get the story at any cost, but coming out from this lecture, this picture in my head was shattered. What must've been a gross stereotype on my behalf has lead me to believe the wrong this, which brings a sigh of relief. To know that ethics do play a role in the industry, and to have good habits and good virtue when writing a story is how one becomes known as a good journalist.

The News International phone hacking scandal is a good example of how far journalists are willing to push ethical boundaries to get a story. Tapping into phones, bribing police officers and exerting pressure onto sources were just some of the things that News International were accused of. However, despite showing the unethical practices of some journalists, it also shows how harsh of a crack down is willing to happen when such a break of ethics occurs in the world of reporting. It's good to see that unethical behaviour is not being swept under the blanket, but dealt with and slammed.

A good journalist, is an ethical one.