Group 7 Real World Ethics Presentation

Our group will be discussing a situation involving TSN, a Canadian sports network, that displayed a tweet on their show saying that a Toronto Maple Leafs player was having an affair with a teammate’s wife. Many people blame the tweeter himself, while others including him blame TSN. We are not sure how we are going to interact with the class for our presentation yet. We will most likely use Prezi or Power Point.

http://www.imediaethics.org/News/10088/Canadas_tsn_aired_tweet_saying_maple_leaf_players_wife_cheated__lawsuit_threatened_.php

Film Challenge #4

The story of Stephen Glass at The New Republic is a harsh blow to the credibility of journalists. Fabricating sources, let alone entire stories, goes against everything that journalism stands for. While something like this may have been more common and easier to get away with in the past, the Internet has made it nearly impossible to get away with something like this today. Glass was only 24 years old at the time and wanted nothing more than to be a successful journalist. However, his desired greatness and popularity caused him to do something he could not be forgiven for.

At the time of Glass’ employment at The New Republic, the Internet age was growing rapidly. People were able to find information just by searching it online instead of looking in printed records or searching through phone books to call people. More importantly, newsworthy information that didn’t appear online was suspicious. In a similar situation to Glass’, Jayson Blair, former writer for The New York Times, was caught fabricating stories a few years after Glass. However, he was initially caught for plagiarizing several pieces from other well-known papers. Glass wasn’t plagiarizing his stories, but he was susceptible to the Internet search. Forbes writer, Adam Penenberg’s keyword search led to the unveiling of Glass’ lies.

From Glass’ point of view, it seems as though he was under a lot of pressure as a young journalist. As stated in the beginning, the median age at The New Republic was 26. Most of his co-workers were young as well and he wanted to stand out and be different from his peers. When he told his completely made-up stories in the conference room, they all loved it and adored him. That much attention and fame is hard to step away from once you’ve gotten a taste of it.

While Glass can play the young and stupid card, there is no denying that he knew what he did was wrong. One of the core obligations of journalism is to seek the truth and report it. He claims that Chuck was just going after him because he was loyal to his previous editor, Michael, and he should’ve been supporting him as one of his reporters. But Chuck was just doing his job by keeping his reporters accountable. Glass says in the movie that his job is great because The New Republic is read by people who matter and they have a chance to really shape public opinion. Making up stories to shape opinions only leads to a loss of credibility, trust, and loyalty.

Glass should have just come right out and admitted that his story was fake the first time he was questioned. He may have gotten off with a minor suspension had he confessed earlier, but that’s nothing compared to being labeled a liar for the rest of your life. His constant lying, fake phone numbers, and fake website just made his situation worse. This story provides a lesson to all journalists, especially in today’s age, that the hunger for a juicy story should never overshadow the obligation of a journalist. If you risk writing a fabricated story for more attention and fame, you’re also risking your respect in the field of journalism and as a person, and that is not something you can afford to lose.

Sources

Shattered Glass

http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

https://storify.com/nicole_kraft/media-law-and-ethics-in-film-comm-3404 (Lecture Slides)

Film Challenge #3

Rachel Armstrong’s withholding of her source in Nothing But the Truth demonstrated how difficult it is for reporters to keep their sources anonymous. With no federal shield law, journalists are expected to release the names of any sources they use for a story, otherwise they can lose credibility and maybe even their jobs. In Armstrong’s case, she keeps her source anonymous to protect them and to keep her integrity. While what she did could be seen as admirable to other journalists, she may have caused more trouble than she prevented by not identifying where her information came from.

It is not uncommon for a reporter to try and keep their source safe from the world, especially when their source asks for anonymity. However, today in the United States we do not have a federal shield law to allow journalists to do this. When Allison Van Doren revealed to Rachel that her mother was a CIA agent, she ended the discussion with “Don’t tell anyone I told you, okay?” In the case of Cohen v. Cowles Media, Cohen gave records to some Minnesota newspapers and was promised confidentiality. He was later identified and fired from his job and when he sued for breach of contract, he lost because the First Amendment did not bar a promissory estoppel. While that wasn’t a concern on Allison’s, Rachel thought it was best to keep her anonymous for safety reasons.

Rachel knew that if she revealed that her source was Erica Van Doren’s 6-year-old daughter, not much good would come from it. Erica may have been upset with Allison and their family may have had some troubles. She also might have lost major credibility because her main source was from a young child and for all she knew, what Allison told her could be completely wrong. Most importantly, Rachel promised confidentiality to Allison and keeping that promise was important for Rachel’s integrity as a journalist and as a person. Also, while her story led to Erica’s murder, Rachel had nationally significant information that was important for the public to know, so she put it out there.

While she had people’s best interests in mind, Rachel also had a lot of reasons to give up her source. By keeping it anonymous, she was breaking the law. Such a serious topic that questioned whether or not the U.S. was attacking the right country needed a source attached to it. National security is very important to the government and any accusations that could affect the country’s involvement in a war need some actual evidence to be available. She also damaged relationships with her newspaper and her family by staying in jail. Her paper was fined $10,000 a day and she ended up getting divorced. She came off as somewhat selfish as the movie went on.

While she caused a lot of problems for herself and others, I think Rachel Armstrong made the right decision. There was no way for her to predict the tragedies that occurred after her story was published. She promised confidentiality and kept her integrity as a journalist. This story is important to journalism because it shows us how difficult life can be when journalists keep sources anonymous. It also makes you think about whether or not a federal shield law is necessary.

SOURCES

Nothing But the Truth

https://storify.com/nicole_kraft/media-law-and-ethics-in-film-comm-3404 (Lecture Slides)