Blog Post 7

This weeks reading hit especially close to home for me. I've studied photography for over 8 years so the ethics of photography as a tool of reporting have been hammered into my head. I was extremely interested in the pictures and individual cases that were going to accompany the chapter. 

One of the most powerful for me was the case focusing on Marinovich in Soweto. I had seen both pictures before in different online chat rooms but never truly knew the story. It brought me back to one of the very first classes we had in which we all discussed the role of ethics in deciding to publish certain pictures. In my opinion I would've published these photos. They may ruin someone’s breakfast but they are the truth and paint a somber picture that I think the public should've known. As we discussed in class, perhaps it may be more tactful to put the picture on a page a bit farther from the front but they should still be showcased. I feel like too much of the U.S. population didn't find the war in Iraq and Afghanistan relevant to them because they felt extremely disconnected form it. This disjointedness comes from the paucity of real time coverage (especially images) that truly demonstrates the atrocities abroad.

I think something about the Soweto case that stuck out to me specifically, was the discussion of the ethics of the photographer. A lot of the time focus is placed on the editors and their ethics, see: should we publish this or not. Yet the ethics behind the person taking the actual picture are judged as well. I found myself having a bit of a mental conflict in this regard. As a photographer I think if you find something powerful to shoot that makes a once in a lifetime shot, then by all means shoot it. But this isn’t ethically sound, as the book discusses. The question of ‘to shoot or not to shoot’ is one based intensely upon how a certain individuals ethical map looks. As a realist I see no problem shooting something as it’s happening but many might argue this as wrong. I think back to an extremely startling photo I saw a couple of months ago. A man lay on the ground, hands bound with hundreds of knives sticking out of him, the gore was off the Richter. It was one of the most powerful photos I’d ever seen. I immediately researched its origins. Apparently the man stabbed was a rapist abroad, killed after the entire village decided to take action against him. The photo is jarring but an interesting statement.

There was a lot of criticism towards the photographer for taking pictures in place of helping the man being stabbed, but how much can he be expected to do? If he had intervened might he also become a victim? That’s not to say if you can stop something that you shouldn’t but it seems as if in this situation that might be more dangerous than staying out of it. I also think ethically it’s impossible to hold all photographers to the same standard. Perhaps I’m biased but conclusively I feel the editors should shoulder more of the responsibility in these situations. Running the picture to thousands of readers is a lot different than taking one in the heat of the moment.

Blog Post 6

Hyper competition in the news industry is something that I wanted to touch on first for this week. I think anyone that keeps up with the news at all can testify that the competition has both a huge positive side as well as a negative. I began to think about the way that the New York Times works. Seeing as almost all media sources are channeled online, I began to check their website for my news. The first time I was there though after seeing just a couple of articles, they required a login. Looking further into what it took to create an account, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the fact that you had to pay to read more. I was perplexed. On one hand, it made sense, you have to pay for a hard copy of the paper so why shouldn't you also have to pay for the online version? But at the same time there are so many other free sources of news online that it almost seemed too easy to just blow off the NYTimes and look elsewhere. I understand that they have a very loyal readership but I'd be very interested to see how much money they were making.

For readers this hyper competition can mean one of two things. Either one readers are getting extremely comprehensive and good coverage of events based on one newspaper wanting to have more information that is more accurate or two it could be the opposite. Newspapers so focused on making a profit may go out of their way to stretch and bend the truth to sound like the best read.

As the book explains focusing so much on the brand of a newspaper causes some journalists lose sight of the “balanced, objective and ethical” demands of their job. I definitely think that a journalist’s primary loyalty should be to their readers but I’m kind of conflicted. I feel like those going into journalism understand that they need to keep the public informed, that’s their job, but they also have to look out for themselves. Following the stockholder theory then that would mean to do exactly what stockholders are asking you to do – increase share prices. But does that get in the way of what has been seen as the primary responsibility of journalists in the past? Where should the line be drawn? We want to expect honest and fair news but how much are we willing to pay for it? I certainly am more wiling to pay for my news instead of looking towards an unreliable source but I don’t know if the majority of people feel that way. I’ve thought about this a lot and I’m just as conflicted as when I began. I’m not sure if there really is a right way. Being honest and transparent feels right but it also seems a bit implausible to expect that all the time from every newspaper when there is so much competition. 

Blog Post 5

         To begin with, I found the beginning of this chapter to be incredibley relevant to not only myself as an individual but to my generation as a whole. I am ashamed to say that the majority of people that I know have little interest or care in the political landscape of our country, despite it affecting them on a daily basis. When my peers do become involved with politics though, they do so in an extremely fair weather fashion. Rarely do we look deeply into current issues or the backgrounds of those that lead us. Thus what media outlets we look too greatly influence our opinions and choices. All too often, we depend solely on a single source of information without bothering to explore. This puts a huge responsibility on the providers of this information. As the book mentioned, it’s somewhat unavoidable to completely dismiss all sorts of bias but the hope is that the reader may be able to discern the bits of truth from the “chaos”. My worry is that with my generation, many have lost this ability.

       When it comes to evaluating whether or not a certain stream of political communication is legitimate, I was a bit perplexed by the books pillars of “virtue”, so to say. I agree that transparency is incredibly important, as later discussed; attempting to manipulate or bend the truth almost always ends badly. I also agree that pluralism is essential to the concept of truthful media, especially when applied to a political realm. Without different voices and sides of the same story, bias can be overpowering and extremely misleading. Yet the last too concepts that the book discusses had me a bit confused. Perhaps I didn’t quite grasp them abstractly, but I couldn’t begin to really understand how they would apply in practice. Verisimilitude is a word I’ve seen a couple of times in my academic career but I don’t really understand how this is applicable to all forms of political communication. Is it the idea that whoever is reporting or speaking on a certain issue must be responsible for the truth behind it? Or is it based off of the concept that when speaking in a political realm all claims must sprout from some sort of verifiable source? I felt the same about ‘practice’. I’m the last person to argue against civic engagement or voting but does every form of political communication need to fall under this category? The book mentions that this framework should only be applied on an individual story or ad level but I still fail to understand how the last two are applicable.

       I was very interested to see what the book had to say about political figures getting elected and the ethics behind this. The book agrees that first and foremost political ads should be based off of factual information. Yet I think anyone in this day an age that has been around for any election can agree that political ads are almost laughable when it comes to completely factual information. I think the “attack ads” as the book mentioned are what most people remember about political ads, which is why they are so dangerous. The comparative ads may be more information rich, but they aren’t what we remember when we think about opposing candidates. Hopefully in the future, political outlets will begin to realize that attack ads negatively affect everyone.

Blog Post 4

In this chapter the discussion of the difference between the need vs the right to privacy was something that confused me a bit. While originally skimming through the pages I thought a little about this framing before reading what the book had to say. In my mind the idea of right vs. needs connotes a idea of legal vs. ethical respectively. The right to privacy seems to be something that is proliferated and supported by the legal framework of a system whereas the need seems to be more based on an ethical standpoint.

            My thoughts were only further complicated by what the book had to say. On one hand it made sense the right and need were somewhat synonymous or at least commonly confused for one another. The book seemed to generally support my initial thoughts in the sense that right essentially indicated that there was another factor, primarily governmental at play. So in a sense, if we follow this logic, the right to privacy should fall under the need for privacy, it is more of a result as opposed to a completely sovereign factor.

            Another conflict that the book discussed was that of secrecy and privacy. I tried to apply the books logic to common day situations. According to the authors secrecy is more intentionally blocking information to others where privacy is just giving one control over what information is blocked. Again I am faced with trying to distinguish if, by definition, secrecy then falls underneath privacy. I suppose I didn’t really understand if these two things were acting in tandem with one another, or were simply just definitions explored by the book.

            The concept of the veil of ignorance seems like a logically sound one when discussed abstractly but I question if it could translate well to real life. If there were to be a discussion between parties over an ethical issue, it seems doubtful that everyone would be able to completely abandon their promotions and previous viewpoints to return to their ‘original positions’. It seems as if almost everyone would continue to act in a way as a result of his or her current status in life, even if it was purely unintentional and subconscious. I think the veil of ignorance, when applied to media ethics, is a great idea and possibly incredibly helpful to the maintenance of sound ethical principles, I would just have a hard time believing that everyone participating would agree to being on the same ground.

            Of all the cases in this chapter, case 5-D got the biggest reaction out of me. I was in disbelief at this story. I cannot even begin to imagine the anger I would have as a parent were my child to be indirectly used in an ad targeted against gay marriage. I think the truthfulness and accuracy following the video were next to none, they were completely manipulative and deceitful in making and distributing this ad. I understand, as the book suggests, that ads are generally narrow in their viewpoint but this completely took it to another level, and an egregious one at that.

Chapter 4: Loyalties

I found this chapter to be extremely relevant to what I perceive as most peoples interpretation of ethical dilemmas. We are tested of our loyalties on a daily basis in our personal lives. Who to tell what, if we have a right to, etc are all issues that have come up in class discussion before. The long discussion we had the first day of class over if the girl should tell her friend that her boyfriend had cheated, dealt with exactly the sort of problems this chapter touched on. The obvious differences though are the application of this type of thought to a professional and media related background. 

As I've discussed before, my thoughts arising from my introduction to the professional ethics of PR seem to find endless fodder to reflect on in these recent chapters. In the reading, the idea of trust is important both in an inter-company sense as well as in a inter-public sense as well. Loyalties to ones company (or client) are incredibly important without a doubt, but PR is more than that. PR is a profession that places equal, if not more, emphasis on cultivating a rapport between the client and it's target publics. Where as advertisers may not feel the direct backlash of losing the trust of the public, PR professionals feel the heat and are chiefly responsible for cooling things down. Thus becoming loyal (as much as one can) to the target public can be incredibly beneficial and important to anyone hoping to succeed in the PR business.

This concept really interrelates with the rest of the tenets of loyalty that the book touches on as well. For example, the importance of avoiding abuse of power etc is essential to anyone hoping to gain favorable attitudes in the realm of publicity. One slip up or scandal and it can turn into a PR nightmare, sometimes so messy that it can’t be fixed.

Another issue that I connected with in the reading was the case study of Hillary Clinton. I remember the controversy over the picture and found it interesting that it was included in this realm of ethics. I suppose it makes sense seeing as the photograph was media related but I never saw it as an ethical issue. The fact that the magazine that released the photo was not a huge media outlet is irrelevant in my opinion. As the book explained those major media outlets DID get their hands on the altered photograph and it became a big-ticket item. In terms of the ideology behind not releasing the photographs of Bin Laden’s body, I think the media outlets were trying to be sensitive and tread lightly. It was obviously huge news that he had been killed but surrounding that with sensationalism would make certain news outlets seem cheap in my opinion. On top of this the international retribution that could come from releasing them could’ve been dangerous.