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Dana Mroue

201500540

Truth Vs Harm

After successfully provoking and irritating Nick Santorum’s assistant due to his race and his personal views, Will Mcavoy did not permit himself ending the tense conversation without having the last straw. Will Mcavoy turned to two specific ethical theories in order to defend his actions and they include the consequentialism (Utilitarianism) and the Non-consequentialism (Deontology). However, was asking racial and controversial questions in order to pull the truth out of him the right thing to do? Was it ethical of him to attack his guest in such way? Did he break any etiquette or laws?

Will Mcavoy did not even begin his interview on the right foot, instead already knowing information concerning his guest speaker, he asks him a question that regarding sexuality in marriage of the senator even though he is not affiliated with it. To begin with, it is obvious that Will Mcavoy did not follow any etiquette and that was proven by the way he talked to him and how he did not permit Mr. Wall to talk at all and when he did, he wasn’t able to proceed at all. Ethics has several purposes and one of them include the protection of journalists from abuse and how it is a safeguard to them, but he did not follow any of these principles. The values that should be considered are the consequences, and of course the speaker’s identity. In terms of Deontology, Will Mcavoy did not consider the consequences but instead he did what he thought was right and that was provoking the guest speaker in order to get the information out of him. “An Act is right because it honors an obligation or fulfils a duty, even if fulfilling the duty has negative consequences or sets back our interests” (Ward, 2011, p.40). McAvoy depended on duty because it was his duty as a journalist to know these information, and that’s true but the content that was asked and the way he did that resulted in backfiring him. Most journalists follow deontology because it’s their duty but sometimes there are negative outcomes; Mcavoy obviously did not care for the negative outcomes because he proceeded with his attack and interview but throughout the clip we see the outcome of this interview. “Whenever we set out to maximize good consequences or results, such as the good or the pleasure for ourselves or for all, there is a danger that arguments for the greater good will justify doing harm to some people” (Ward, 2011, p.41); this statement proves what occurred in that interview, not only did it harm the guest speaker but it also harmed Mcavoy. In terms of utilitarianism, it was completely neglected and applied at the same time; an action is determined good or bad depending on the consequences. In this case, Mcavoy neglected the consequences and carried on with the action, he only focused on the action and not the utility or the consequence. Mcavoy realized his consequences after the interview, not just because of the guilt but also because of the physical responses he is getting, and this is where he discovered that what he did, did not bring utility to anyone, to him and to his co-workers. The co-workers even noticed how he was behaving and how unethical he was, and they even tried to stop him but he wouldn’t listen because in his mind he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Each journalist or news anchor should know their limit before interviewing a person, Mcavoy did not limit himself from talking but instead he kept talking; in addition to that he asked that last question because in a way he did not want to “lose”, because to him it was a competition; he did not really consider the feelings of the interviewee. If Mcavoy considered the consequences beforehand, he would have not gotten abuse or have felt guilty so therefore what he should have did is consider the consequences and not ask these harmful questions or cutting the interview short after noticing how irritated the interviewee was; another suggestion is the crew take an unexpected break so they can cut the argument short and move on onto another topic. Nothing Will did can prove him right, because he crossed the line by insulting race and what not, there was no benefit from asking such questions because they are not correlated with Mr. Wall but are correlated to Mr. Santorum, so he could have just asked Mr. Santorum instead but he asked Mr. Wall on purpose because Will is obviously not a fan of African American people and homosexuals.

Will response in the end was uncessary, as he could simply just admit his defeat in silence but no instead, he made it worse and humiliated his guest again. I think nothing would have been able to stop Mcavoy because of his ego; his ego led him to do such a horrible mistake but if he actually felt bad or regret it he would have stopped throughtout the interview.

References

Ward, S. J. (2011). Ethics and the Media .