Friday, December 3

Happy Friday!! Read the following information to see what we are doing in class...

As we saw in Shattered Glass, there are many ethical decisions a reporter and editor must weigh and ultimately make in a given story. Many of you were surprised something more serious didn’t happen to Glass legally. This is partly due to the fact that his stories were fabricated; he did not harm any individual, as these individuals were frequently false.

When discussing media ethics, one must consider the most common legal pitfalls, which include:

Libel: Injury to reputation. False words, pictures, or cartoons that expose a person to public hatred, shame, disgrace or ridicule or induce an ill opinion of a person are libelous.

Obscenity: Another form of unprotected speech. Generally defined as something that by community standards arouses sexual desire, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Slander: The utterance of a falsehood that damages another’s reputation. Spoken defamation (as opposed to libel, which is printed).

Not every unethical behavior is legally forbidden, even if it is injurious (such in the case of Stephen Glass' stories). The basic ethical issues that usually arise in journalism include:

1. The importance of getting more than one source; the importance of using only information that is “on the record.”
2. The question of whether it is ethical to use the names of juveniles who have committed a crime.
3. The ethical question of when something is an invasion of privacy; the question of when a photo, or whether that photo should be published.
4. The question of whether to print unsigned letters to the editor; the importance of having a letter to the editor policy established. The responsibility of the publication for everything it prints.
5. The issue of using anonymous sources.
6. The issue of conflict of interest.
7. The importance of getting both sides of an issue.

Today you will think through 11 different ethical situations that I have provided, all of which take place in a high school newspaper setting. Using the information above, you will work with a partner in making a final ethical decision. You will see just how tricky this can be. Write your answers to these questions on a separate piece of paper. I will collect these at the end of class.

Let me know if you have any questions!