Media Ethics 2005 Abstracts
Media Ethics Division
Can Professionalism Protect the Integrity of Journalism Against the Market? • Sandra L. Borden, Western Michigan University • The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the potential of professionalism to support good work and give journalists some leverage against the power of their employing organizations in the current media market. This essay critically examines the two key functions of professional organization for journalists ethical motivation and occupational power-in terms of both their potential usefulness and their potential problems.
Ideal Journalism. An Analysis of the Idaho Falls Post Register’s Ideologies in Covering the 2002 Gubernatorial Campaign • Kris Boyle, Brigham Young University • Based on the concept of journalism ideology, this study identifies ideologies established by the Idaho Falls Post Register and examines whether these ideologies were reflected in its coverage of the 2002 Idaho gubernatorial race, where one of the candidates was the paper’s publisher/ owner. The author found the paper adapted its guidelines from ideologies generally accepted by many journalists, including objectivity, balance, and facticity, and concludes the paper stuck close to these guidelines in its coverage.
A Failure of Imagination: The 9/11 Commission, Terrorism Coverage, and Media Responsibility • Glen Feighery, University of Utah • Coverage of terrorism provides a compelling context in which to consider whether journalists have ethical duties to be proactive, not just reactive. This paper examines the July 2004 report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission). The report criticized the news media, concluding that journalists shared some of the blame for failing to adequately warn the public of the risk of terrorism before September 11, 2001.
This Little Piggy Went to Press: The Ethics of the American News Media’s Construction of Animals in Agriculture, from 2000-2003 • Carrie Packwood Freeman, University of Oregon • Big corporate operators have taken over the bulk of Iowa’s pork production, with dire results not only for the small farmer but also for those of us who were raised on succulent pork chops and pork roasts. Fat gives pork some of its flavor, but modern hogs are bred to minimize fat; …Raised in close quarters inside enormous metal buildings, the hogs foul the air for miles around, and their meat is bland, dry and tough when cooked.
Murder in our Midst: Expanding Coverage to Include Care and Responsibility • Romayne Smith Fullerton, University of Western Ontario and Maggie Jones Patterson, Duquesne University • Using a U.S. and a Canadian example, this paper argues news reports of murder often employ predetermined formulae that probe intrusively into the lives of those involved in the murder but ultimately come away with only a cheaply sketched, stick-figure portrait.
Black Eye: The Ethics of CBS News and the National Guard Documents • Elizabeth Blanks Hindman, Washington State University • This case study applies ethics theories and codes to the mainstream news media’s response to the CBS News- National Guard forged documents fiasco of 2004. It finds that 177 newspaper editorials applied truth telling, accountability, independence, and stewardship principles in their criticism of CBS, but only in a limited way. While the editorials dealt well with the specific issues of the case, they missed an opportunity to discuss the broader ethical principles involved.
Blood On the Lens ‘Private’ Moments, Public Platforms: Images and Ethics Codes Across Media in an Era of Violence and Tragedy • Susan Keith, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Carol B. Schwalbe, Arizona State University and B. William Silcock, Arizona State University • An analysis of forty-seven journalism ethics codes found that although most consider photography, only ten address a gripping issue: how to treat images of tragedy and violence, such as those produced on the battlefields of Iraq and in the 2004 Madrid bombings. Among codes that consider violent and tragic images, there is agreement on what images are problematic and a move toward “green light” reflection on ethical responsibilities (especially in guidelines produced by RTNDA/RTNDF).
Codes and Codism: SPJ, RTNDA And NPPA Rewrite their Codes of Ethics — Why, How, and to what Effect? • Dan Kozlowski, University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill •Within the past decade, three national journalism organizations – the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), and the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) – have revised their codes of ethics, involving considerable debate and organizational fanfare. This paper examines the code revisions at those three organizations.
Interactivity and Prioritizing the Human: A Code of Blogging Ethics • Martin Kuhn, North Carolina – Chapel Hill• Blogs and blogging continue to gain in popularity. They are being integrated into the mainstream media mix and are attracting advertising dollars. As a new balance between freedom and responsibility is being struck in the blogosphere, the author uses new communication technology ethics scholarship and an exploratory survey of bloggers to propose a new code of blogging ethics to inform blogging decisions.
Succulent Sins, Personalized Politics, and Mainstream Media’s Tabloidization Temptation • Jenn Burleson Mackay, University of Alabama • This paper examines how mainstream journalism’s credibility is threatened by the use of tabloid news techniques. Experiment participants read either four standard news stories or similar stories written in a tabloidized style. Reporter credibility was measured using the Source Credibility Scale. The writers of the tabloid stories were found less competent, trustworthy, and caring than the other reporters. The credibility of tabloidized hard news verses soft news was also studied. Market-orientation and tabloidization are discussed.
Minding The Gap: An Ethical Perspective on the Use of Weblogs in Journalistic Practice • Andrew Morozov, Washington State University • This exploratory study examines the role of online journalism with respect to traditional journalistic practice. The focus of the study is the weblog form of online journalism, and its role in the contemporary media environment, evaluated from the perspective of responsibilities, functions, and practices of the journalistic profession. The analysis surveys the repercussions of the “blogging” phenomenon, and suggests how traditional professional journalistic responsibilities may be reinterpreted in the context of online journalism.
Bloggers Strike a Nerve: Examining the Intersection of Blogging and Journalism • Bryan Murley and Kim Smith • University of South Carolina • Researchers conducted a census after the 2004 presidential election of the authors of the top 100 most-visited, current-events blogs to discover what they thought about politics, their role as bloggers in society, and as citizen journalists. More than 90 % considered blogs an important contributor to democracy; 93 % said fact-checking the traditional news media was an important; and nearly 90 % opposed using an editor to check postings for accuracy.
A “Fool Satisfied?” Journalists and Mill’s Principle of Utility • Lee Anne Peck, University of Northern Colorado • Although J.S. Mill is most often identified in the same breath with utilitarianism in journalism textbooks, a thorough examination of his beliefs about morality is often lacking. Professional journalists and journalism students alike oftentimes read these brief explanations and believe, therefore, that using lies, coercion and manipulation is appropriate behavior in the gathering of information if the consequences will lead to more benefits that harms; they might also believe that breaking the law is allowed.
An Appeal to Newspaper Authority in Television Political Ads: A Case Study • Chris Roberts, University of South Carolina • A textual analysis of two television advertisements, created by a U.S. Senate candidate during the 2004 general election in South Carolina, shows how newspapers are used (and misused) to introduce perceptions of independent authority in partisan political advertising. The functional theory of political discourse is used to examine how the ads use newspapers as a third-party authority to defend against opposing ads, to attack opponents, and to acclaim the candidate’s achievements.
Civic Responsibility: A Casualty of Ethical Principle • John C. Watson, American University • Moral philosophers since Socrates have insisted that citizens have a moral obligation to obey the law. But American journalists since John Peter Zenger have been flouting this civic responsibility even before there was a First Amendment to defend and justify their actions. Like Socrates, journalists often claim an ethical obligation to elucidate the truth that overrides their civic responsibility to comply with the government’s interpretation of the First Amendment.
Communitarian Ethics and the Electronic Village • Alisa White, University of Texas at Arlington • This paper proposes that the broadcast media are eclipsing the local community as the place James Carey’s “looking glass self’ develops. The arguments for the broadcast media arid audience as community are located in Alasdair Maclntyre’s theory of the virtues (1984). Janet Jackson’s breast exposure to a worldwide audience watching the halftime show of the 2004 National Football League Super Bowl and the subsequent outpouring of negativity are discussed.
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