blogpost 1: McAvoy’s promise in seeking the truth aftermath

In one of the episodes of the show “The News Room,” the character Will McAvoy and his team decide to interview former deputy chief of staff of Republican Senator Rick Santorum’s. knowing that Macvoy previously promised to reinstate truth, integrity, and honesty in the news, he was set to do just that during his interview while the USA audience was watching, as it was his duty as a journalist to show them who they were going to vote for. At that time, there was an intense competition between news channels to stand out.

Therefore, given the context in which the situation occurred, a conflict between in the values of truth and harm occurred.

Macvoy already has his opinion set about the politician, he wanted to reveal the homophobic and racist part of him to the audience and expose his hypocrisy. While attempting to do that, the anchor completely dehumanized the candidate’s elect in the interview, degrading him to a means to meet his ends through pointing out the color of his skin, and his sexual orientation.

The news anchor would say he is working for the better of the world, but what are the duties of a news anchor? And where do they end? Should he be the one leading the interview or facilitating the way for the person being interviewed to speak his mind? Is it really up to the news anchor to decide what is the benefit of the society? These questions all rise up to investigate whether what the anchor did was ethical or not.

The duty-based ethics would say that he, as a journalist, was perusing an ethical goal, given that he was seeking to get the truth his audience deserved to know. According to the code of ethics in journalism,

A journalist must report and disseminate truthful and relevant information, refrain from incitement of hatred, inflammatory speech, promote causes beneficial to society, educate and Inform, reflect and promote public debate, enhance capacity for critical judgment, protect interests and needs of society against abuse, balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort, etc.

On that note, every step the anchor took towards reaching his goal was unethical. Along the way to exposing the truth about the corrupt politician, he undermined the campaign elect’s task. He completely disregarded why the man supported the politician. His race and sexual orientation might have been outweighed by other benefits that politician could have offered the country, but the anchor was too focused on is the mission to seek the truth to consider such possibilities.

Mcavoy's unconditional commitment to getting nothing but the truth threw him into a state of tunnel vision that made him blind to all the consequences his actions created such as violating some of the codes. for example, he failed to Realize that the campaign elect is a private man and therefore has a greater right to control information about himself than public figures and others who seek power or influence. He also did not weigh the consequences of revealing his personal information and making it the focus of the interview. Therefore, Macvoy had no right to force the campaign elect to talk about his race and sexual orientation, two things he clearly did not want to talk about in front of the public.

Other than that, Macvoy did not Consider the long-term implications of his actions, he might as well have insulted the whole black race and LGBTQ community

The duties, in this case, are no match for the consequences. Macvoy might have had the last word which leads him to achieve his goal, but with that, he forced the man to nationally admit that the person he works for think’s he is worthless. His last question that was a moment of utter humiliation for the man, was his way of justifying his aggression.

Therefore, what the anchor did is unjustifiable, indeed the truth was revealed, but he could have achieved that without the need to cause the person being interviewed any humiliation. He could have taken the non-consequentialist approach which indicates that humans should neither be used nor abused for a higher end. In that case, the interview wouldn’t have gone the way it did. Macvoy would have refrained from addressing such a private subject, and looked for other information regarding Santorum he could have used for his advantage.