Is that my conscience talking?

“In the end journalism is an act of character” (The Elements of Journalism, page 230). That measure of character is put to the test every day. As we learned towards the end of class today, some of those instances where the character of a journalist is put to the test provides considerable dilemmas. Take for example, Arthur Ash. USA Today phoned him and asked if he had AIDS, he would neither confirm or deny it and USA Today responded by saying they were going to publish the story with or without his support. They were just looking for a legitimate source. The next day Ash held a press conference himself admitting that he had AIDS (derived from a blood transfusion during surgery) and felt bullied into his confession by the press.

I love the checklist we received as a handout in class because I think it covers all ground when it comes to ethics and the media. In this particular case I feel the big ethical dilemma is between #6, Who are the stakeholders –those affected my decision? What are their motivations? Which are legitimate and #8, What are the possible consequences of my actions? Short term? Long term?

These are great philosophical questions that really get down to the essence of character in journalism. There is a whole chapter devoted to character in Elements, entitled Journalists Have a Responsibility to Conscience. I completely agree with that statement and I think that journalists should have the constant opportunity to exercise that responsibility to conscience openly with others by having debates with others in the newsroom of whether or not pushing a story or revealing a source is ethical. With that, there should be an open forum in the newsroom for employees to express feelings about the ethics of their own business. I believe when such a forum occurs, employees are able to realize that many of their colleagues from all different departments share the same concerns and questions. Such an open forum may have stopped fallacious journalists such as Jayson Blair of The New York Times and Stephen Glass of The New Republic. Check out The New York Times ten page article covering one of their own, well formally one of their own, the infamous Jayson Blair.
And don’t miss this extensive, contemporary report on Ethics for the new investigative newsroom: A Roundtable Report on best practices for nonprofit journalism. Nonprofit journalism is debatably the most promising and innovative solution to the search for a new model of journalism, thanks to the ingenious ProPublica.