Week 8: Ethics

ethicsplural of eth·ics (Noun)

Noun:

Moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior. The moral correctness of specified conduct.

A lady called Karen Sanders wrote a book called Ethics and Journalism? I read a few pages and what is really interesting is that she refers to journalists and reporters as the 21st Century's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as they both "repel and attract" and that they are "little trusted, little loved (but often secretly admired)". She also adds a quote by a foreign correspondent, Nicholas Tomalin where he says journalists have a "plausible manner, rat like cunning and a little literary ability". And that was a quote from 1969. She also has another quote at the start of the chapter, from Dr Samuel Johnson, that says "A reporter is 'a man without virtue who writes lies...for a profit.'"

Now i don't really know who these people are and I am not going to pretend that I do, nor am I going to take the time to look them up. What I am really interested in and what I want to focus on is what they have said here. I quite agree with Sanders when she calls journalists the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I think this can be quite true in many cases but definitely not all. I am sure there are many reporters that can be really nice and then turn into a monster with what they chose to write or report on and how they chose to write/report on it. And I am also sure that there are many reporters that do not have a serum to turn them from one to the other and like the unfortunate story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, they are unable to differentiate one from the other and end up being pure evil. Just kidding not really pure evil but lead them to be "little trusted, little loved". I think, also like the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story, that there is a certain attractiveness when it comes to journalism about being able to write and report on many different and controversial topics with a "moral freedom" (as it is termed in the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) as some people might see it. But no journalist, no matter how famous or who they write for, are able to be morally free. Each one must adhere to a code of ethics.

I also really enjoyed the quote form Nicholas Tomalin. I just wouldn't have chosen a rat to be the animal that had cunning. I have had pet rats and they were mostly just sleepy and not cunning. I would call a fox cunning but i suppose that doesn't really convey the same message. So a rat it is. Journalists are sneaky and live in the sewers of towns and feed on the scum of society or really feed on telling everyone about the scum of society but i suppose not everyone agrees with the scum being exposed, especially when you are the scum.

I also watched a movie just recently called Oranges and Sunshine. In this, a social worker, tries to locate the families of children that were deported to Australia in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. All she is doing is trying to find out wh othey are, why they were deported and if they have any family surviving. As news of how these children were treated starts to come to light, people start calling her a bitch, a whore and a liar, saying that she is working with journalists that are spreading lies about good people. Nobody likes scum to be shifted to the surface but that is what has to happen. That is a journalist's job and something that must be done. Journalists don't specifically write lies (for a profit) but they most proabably write about what people want to be lies.

There is also another article that is called Journalists code of ethics - an oxymoron?
I didn't even properly read the article to be honest. I was just captivated by the title. Is the code of ethics for journalists an oxymoron? Some people seem to think so. The article is asking this question as it seems that when a journalist does break the code of ethics, the complaint must be made but it is then reviewed by a group of journalists. Each time the complaint is made is just gets shown to a greater number of journalists. So I think the author thinks that it is a very biassed system and that there is no point for it.

I think that you can tell if something is not right, morally or ethically. There is just something that society has built into us, some inherent attribute that we all have built into us. Ethics might be different in each culture but I believe that there are always similarities.