Media Ethics 2003 Abstracts

Media Ethics Division

Bad Apples or Rotten Culture: Media Discourse on the Corporate Scandals of 2001 and 2002 • David Craig, and Kristy Turner, Oklahoma • This paper evaluates 263 print media pieces and broadcast segments to assess how the discourse of 18 major news organizations addressed the ethical dimension of the scandals involving Enron and other companies. Ethical discussion emerged at several levels • individual, organizational, professional, and social • in a variety of formats including in-depth analytical reporting, commentary, and question and answer. Though much of the discourse was not in depth, the best examples point to ways that news organizations can effectively address business ethics.

Balancing News Reporting with National Security in an Age of Terrorism • David Cuillier, Washington State • In the shadow of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, this paper examines the ethics of reporting information in the media that could help citizens but also aid terrorists. Three cases are used to illustrate the ethical considerations journalists face to aggressively obtain and report the truth while minimizing the likelihood that the information could be used for future attacks.

Punctuation and Epistemic Honesty: Do Photos Need What Words Have? • Scott Fosdick and Shahira Fahmy, Missouri • This research begins a discussion of the ethics of sampling reality by drawing together parallel research on quotations and photography. Interviews with editors at leading magazines reveal internalized standards that draw nothing from formal codes of ethics. Editors do not support the adoption of “photation marks” to serve as the visual equivalent of the quotation mark. The authors argue that news practitioners should consider replacing Truth with Honesty as their guiding light when presenting samples of reality.

A Bellwether in Media Accountability: The Work of the New York World’s Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play • Neil Nemeth, Purdue-Calumet • This paper provides the first detailed analysis of the New York World’s Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play, which existed from 1913 until 1931. The bureau had been created in an effort to “promote accuracy and fair play, to correct carelessness and to stamp out fakes and fakers.” The paper argues that the bureau represents a bellwether in the efforts of media organizations to make themselves more accountable to readers, listeners and viewers.

Eight Arguments for the Importance of Philosophical Thinking in Journalism Ethics • Hendrik Overduin, McNeese State • This paper presents eight arguments to establish the importance of philosophical thinking in journalism ethics. The arguments address general issues as well as six philosophical problems unique to journalism. These are the paradox of news judgment, the choice among professional models, the imperative of professional autonomy, the need to reconcile professional values with scientific knowledge, the primacy of discursive reason in news judgment, and the communitarian challenge to traditional arguments for freedom of the press.

Perry Meets Freire: Moral Development’s ‘Leap of Faith’ in the Classroom • Maggie Patterson and Matthew Gropp, Duquesne • The ways teachers can help students through ethical development are explored by drawing upon William G. Perry’s Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years (1970) and, to a lesser extent, Mary F. Belenky, et al.’s Women’s Ways of Knowing (1986). The paper argues that the middle stage of moral development, called Realizing of Relativism, is a critical turning point at which students can turn back, freeze in place, or move on to an eventual commitment to ideas and values.

A Gang of Pecksniffs Grows Up: The Evolution of Journalism Ethics Discourse in The Journalist and Editor and Publisher • Patrick Plaisance, Colorado State • This content analysis explores how journalism’s first trade publications reflected discussion of ethical issues before and during the Progressive Era. While issues of normative behavior for reporters and editors were thought to have developed from earlier efforts to professionalize the field, this study suggests that the two areas, while intertwined, developed along different trajectories.

Questions of Judgment in the Newsroom: A Journalistic Instrumental Value Theory •Patrick Plaisance, Colorado State • Current media theorizing remains preoccupied with building competing normative philosophical frameworks yet does not often focus on the construction and operation of human value systems • which arguably are the engines that drive most ethical deliberations. This study uses social psychology research on value systems to construct a profile of journalistic values using a modified version of the Rokeach Value Survey. A nationwide probability-sample survey of 600 newspaper journalists produced a response rate of 59 percent (N=355).

The Randal Case: An Analysis of the Legal and Ethical Arguments Regarding Journalists Testifying in a War Crime Tribunal • Bastiaan Vanacker, Minnesota • No abstract available.

An Examination of Diversity Issues at Southeastern Journalism Conference Newspapers • Kathleen Wickham, Mississippi • College newspapers are the incubators for young journalists as they develop writing styles, become part of the journalism culture, test ethical problems and determine the news they want to cover. To produce a fair and balanced representation of a diverse population a newsroom must include professionals with varying backgrounds and experience. This study examines a common breeding ground for professional journalists—the college newsroom.

Conflicted Interests, Contested Terrain: Journalism Ethics Codes Then and Now • Lee Wilkins and Bonnie Brennen, Missouri • By analyzing ethics codes, a professional statement of what constitutes good work, this essay links codes to a theory of culture and history. It considers two early journalism ethics codes and assesses the latest New York Times ethics code in light of philosophical theory. The paper suggests that professional tensions outlined in Good Work are reified in the Times code • and that history and culture may be less supportive of a positive outcome of this struggle over values than the insights of psychology might suggest.

Opposing Influences: Reporters’ Perceptions of Structural Constraints • Young Jun Son, Kookmin University-Korea • Political journalists identified a wide variety of structural variables that influenced their ability to select and frame news stories in the coverage of the 2000 Bush-Gore campaign. Newsroom power arrangements were perceived as more influential in selecting and framing stories than media practices. While reporters viewed the influence of editors and wire services on their autonomy in a positive light, they held negative views of the influence of horizontal colleagues and priorities of other media.

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