Ethics: what are the pressing ethical issues for practitioners in your area of specialisation? Do any ethical issues arise from questions around enterprise, working conditions, innovation and creativity?
I am currently doing professional communication degree and I specialize in Media. Media covers all the aspects of communication such as journalism, public relation and advertising. From the wide range of the area in the communication that media covers, allows plenty of ethical issues to occur. As it is obviously seen in the public that media is being bias most of the time.
There are codes of ethics in Media that has been set to regulate the practitioners. As in the Australian Journalist Associations’ Final Report pointed out that the Media practitioners or the Journalist should commit to honesty, fairness, independence and respect for the right of others. However, till today there are several cases being brought to the public regarding Media Practitioners and even big media companies that against its own code of ethics.
Nick Couldry, Mirca Madinou and Amit Pinchevski brought up a great example in their book Ethics of Media, in the introduction part of this book they are talking about several violent protests that occur in the Middle East in September 2012, the protest was against the publication of the Prophet Muhammad Cartoon in Danish Daily in 2005. Did the Muslim Countries respect the freedom of expression? Or did the Danish Daily as a big media company respect the right of other religious believe? Both Protesters and Danish Daily against the code of ethics of media, however the protesters are mostly civilians or even radical Muslims, which have limited understanding in media, therefore it is believe that big media companies should responsible for things that they are publishing.
There is another big case that drew publics’ attention back in 2006. In August 2006, as it stated in one of the case study of Ralph Tench and Liz Yeoman’s book exploring public relation, that Clive Goodman, the royal correspondent of the News of the World (NOTW), a leading UK Sunday tabloid newspaper, was arrested by the metropolitan police under suspicion of intercepting messages from the mobile phones of two members of the royal household. After an investigation on Goodman, he was found guilty and was sentenced for four months in jail. This particular example also shows how unethical Goodman was as a media practitioner, which gives a bad impact on his career.
In the Book Ethics in Media communication: Cases and Controversies that were written by Louis Alvin Day also bring up an example of unethical act that conducted by a media practitioner or a journalist. On the 11th of May 2003 an article in front page of the Times Newspaper that written about a 27 years old journalist Jayson Blair that was committed to the journalistic fraud in at least half of the article he has produced as national reporter. This particular example shows how media practitioners can easily committed to such unethical act and some of them can even get away from it.
There are some examples back in my home country East Timor, where the media practitioners barely understand code of ethics in media. There are only a few newspapers, Radio stations and one Television station. According to BBC News Asia (2015), the news and information that broadcasted on the radio reach 90% of the population in the country. However, most of the radio stations just reread the news that already published in some of the newspapers. Furthermore, BBC News Asia (2015) also stated that there are only 11,500 Internet users by 2014, which makes it difficult for audiences to consume honest, independent, and fair news. In addition, with the fragile media condition that East Timor has, allows media practitioners or the journalist to against code of ethics that already being set.
There are several personal experiences that I would like to talk about, when I was working with one of the bilingual newspapers in East Timor. In 2012 I was working as a co-editor for one of the bilingual newspaper in Eat Timor, and I was facing several difficulties in editing the news, because of the misappropriation in using language from the reporters, which could give an impact on the audience to miss understand the news. It is need to understand that most of the reporter or journalist in East Timor are just graduated from high school and jump straight away to be media practitioner with limited understanding of media.
Several examples of unethical act of the media practitioners have been exhibited in the previous paragraph, which gives an idea of how the media practitioners committed to such unethical act. From those examples, it is seen that unethical act occur because of the lack of understanding and also some particular interest. Particular interest and lack of understanding of media’s code of ethic could result in misunderstanding in the audience and it leads to a conflict in the society. The example that being brought up by Nick Couldry, Mirca Madinou and Amit Pinchevski in the book Ethics of Media, about Danish Daily publishing Muhammad’s Cartoon was involve in the particular interest. It is believe that big media companies like Danish Daily should have well understanding in media and also know very well its code of ethic. It is also believe that the Danish Daily purposely publish prophet Muhammad’s cartoon in order to see how the muslims radical reacted towards it. Moreover, this particular example clearly shows how media can be politicize for some particular interest.
Furthermore, in one the case study in Ralph Tench and Liz Yeoman’s book exploring public relation is talking about how left and right interpret things in a different point of views. The case study also present an example of people with different religious believes and from different part of the world are interpreting things differently. Danish people in Denmark may think that a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad is a joke, but people in the Muslim countries consider it as insult for their religion.
Errors that made by Danish daily is quite similar with an error that happen in UK in 2006, when Mr. Goodman was hacking into mobile phones of the two members of the royal household. It is believe that Mr. Goodman knew very well that getting unpermitted information from the sources is unethical and it also disrespect for the others’ privacy, however Mr. Goodman had an interest, because he could make a profit out of those information no matter how he gets it and whether it is ethical or not.
Moreover, as it is mentioned earlier, errors and unethical act occurs in media is also caused by lack of understanding of the code of ethics of media. As it is mentioned in the book Ethics in Media Communication: Cases and controversies that the study of the Ethics will be futile if it did not promote understanding. There are some parts of the world, where the media practitioners just simply have limited understanding of the code of ethics of media. One of the concrete examples is my home country East Timor.
Looking back at the unethical act that occur in the media industry and caused by the media practitioner, it is confidents to say that the ethical issue mainly arise from the interest of entrepreneurship and also condition of the working place. No matter how big the media company is, it still needs to involve in the entrepreneurship. In addition, working place can determine how cable the media practitioners express their skills.
Reference List:
Australian Journalist Association (1996) Ethics Review Committee: Final Report, Updated November 1996, Viewed 1 April 2016.
http://www.gwb.com.au/99a/ethics.html
BBC News Asia (2015) East Timor Profile; Media, Updated 6 February 2015, Viewed 21 March 2015.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-14952882
Louis Alvin Day (2006) Ethics In Media Communications: Cases and Controversies, Updated 2006, Viewed 1 April 2016.
Nick Couldry, Mirca Madianou & Amit Pinchevski (2013) Ethics of Media, Updated 2013, Viewed 26 March 2016.
Ralph Tench & Liz Yeomans (2015) Exploring Public Relation, Updated February 2015, Viewed 20 March 2015.