Assignment 1 :

What are the core principles of journalism ethics? First, is to prohibit showing hatred towards the other or the use of inflammatory speech. Second, promote issues that are beneficial to societies. Moreover, protect interests and needs of society against abuse. One of the core principles of journalism ethics is to balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort. In addition, address all sources, subjects, colleagues, and members of the public as human beings who deserve respect. As well as, show compassion for those who may be affected by news coverage, and allow legal access to information from an ethical justification to publish. These are considered very important ethical values that every journalist must abide with despite the situation.

In this episode of the “Newsroom”, Will McAvoy is interviewing a black, gay professor that works for Rick Santorum. During this interview, Will starts throwing cruel judgments on the professor accusing him for working for someone who’s racist. While doing so, Will breaks all the principles a true journalist should have, discounting the fact that a human being shouldn’t be taken advantage of to get news. According to Unite For Sight, “further harms to the interviewee may include: violating a participant’s privacy by accessing records or files with private information without the interviewee’s consent”. In this interview, Will McAvoy used the non-consequentialist theory. The main principle of this theory is to apply basic rights even if the results are damaging, we should act upon fundamental principles and universal ethics and focus on reasonable improvement (Ward, 2011).

Unfortunately, Will has not abided by any of the above principles in his interview. Before starting with the interview he has mentioned that he is going to be introducing the spokesman on behalf of former Senator of Philadelphia Rick Santorum, who is currently running for the presidency of the United States of America. His introduction came as follows: “ The Senator is best known perhaps for his full floated advocacy of social issues, here to discuss how these positions and others may shape the Senator’s bid for the White House is his former deputy chief of staff Mr.Wall who will be serving as an advisor for the campaign throughout this process.” Therefore, after this introduction we expect that the interview will be tackling many social aspects instead the the interviewer decided to focus just on one social problem, that is not even related to the presidential campaign, which is the homosexuality of the interviewee and his color tone. One of journalism’s consequential theories is that a journalist must aim for maximising positive outcomes; which provides the greatest amount of good for society. But in this case the presenter has neglected all the social issues occurring in our daily world, especially abortion which was the topic they called Mr. Wall to talk about, instead Will immediately began his interview with a topic that was and is still very sensitive up to this day which is the difference of tone color. Not only that but he also insulted a very wide group of the population when he also tackled the subject of Gay marriage and the interviewees sexual orientation.

Such a behaviour is not considered as ethical because he is definitely minimising the positive outcomes rather than maximising, simply because he has insulted the black people and called them as being inferior. By calling him inferior he has not only affected Mr.Wall himself but he has also targeted a wide huge group of the population, so did he when he tackled the matter of gay marriage inconsiderate of the fact that “ Fifty percent of Americans believe same-sex marriages should be recognised by law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages” Newport, F. (2012, May 8).

Therefore attacking the interviewee in such a way might not only cause a rage among the viewers but among a large population of South Americans as well as homosexual couples who support gay marriage.Throwing accusations or attacking one’s personal live for the sake of delivering the truth behind a certain matter, or because the journalist in that way would think that he’d be aiming of running behind a Propaganda by crossing all means of lines and core principles of journalism. Such an action might be acceptable only when they become a philosophy of Utilitarianism. For those who don’t know what Utilitarianism means it is “ An ethical philosophy in which the happiness of the greatest number of people in the society is considered the greatest good.” (Utilitarianism. (n.d.), 2016)

The offensive and insulting way of attacking had left the interviewer with no thought of what the consequences might be and what harm might he be causing the channel, the interviewee, himself since his private life has been exposed, and to the large population of other people who have also been offended throughout the argument. However, not to an extent where journalists achieve such truths and reality by exposing a man’s private life who he has been working hard for his image and reputation.Many might say, that the presenter has the freedom of speech, in fact he does have the right to do so but not in an offensive way that humiliates him and make the presenter aim for a goal on behalf of another topic. So grasping information on the sake of other topics is not ethically right.

Consequentialism is when a person, journalist, and presenter don’t actually take into consideration how to achieve or approach one’s goal as long as one is doing that cause for a certain purpose or for certain intentions and deeds. However, if you’re driving towards an ethical full goal one’s whole view and approach to it must be ethical as well

Where does the commitment to truth end and respect for the dignity of others begin? I believe that the commitment to truth ends and respect for the dignity of others begin, when dignity stops existing.

Does the overall benefit of exposing the racism and homophobia of a presidential candidate justify this Wills actions? Why or why not? Exposing the racism and homophobia of the presidential candidate is something normal any journalist or presenter would like to talk or mention about, especially if that candidate will be going to speak and represent the American’s for the coming six years. Exposing his sins is something good that might actually make a turning point in the voting and election process and might actually save the US from such kind of a president who does not consider a lot gay and Black Americans as part of this population. However, the presenter has not only exposed the truth behind Santorum but to be more precise he exposed the private life of Walls. And “private” is called private for a reason, so no one can cross pass the heavy and clear meaning this word beholds.

Was Will McAvoy right to insist on having the last word in the interview with Nick Santorum’s assistant?

At the end of the interview Will just couldn’t let his applicant have the last word. He just couldn’t bare the idea that someone working for Rick Santorum would make a good point or would get the audience to sympathize with him.

References:

Newport, F. (2012, May 8). Half of Americans Support Legal Gay Marriage. Retrieved February 5, 2016.

Ward (2011) “What is Ethics” in Ethics and Media, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 40–41.

Utilitarianism. (n.d.). Business Dictionary. Retrieved February 5, 2016, from

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/utilitarianism.html