Name:
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WHAT WOULD YOU DO? MEDIA ETHICS IN-CLASS ACTIVITY
1. Your reporter is covering a
speech by a local politician. The politician makes a joke in the speech that
offends several members of the audience, who stand up and walk out. The person
covering the speech reports this, but in the story repeats the joke told by the
politician. It has a sexual theme. In editing the story:
You delete
the joke because you consider it offensive and inappropriate for your
newspaper.
You let it
stand on the grounds that otherwise your readers (or viewers) can’t properly
judge the
actions of the politician and those people who walked out.
2. Your newspaper is about to publish a
wire-service story about the “Overground Railroad,” a
network that would help women get abortions if Roe v. Wade were to be
overturned by the Bush administration. The story is neutral as to whether the
right to an abortion should exist, but it includes at the end, the toll-free
number for the Overground Railroad headquarters. In editing the story:
You let the
phone number stand. You reason that it’s simply a way to help interested
readers,
similar to printing the opening hours of an art exhibit. Its not free advertising,
you
argue, nor does it promote abortion.
You delete
the phone number. If the subject were non-controversial, you wouldn’t object
to
providing this information. But the story deals with abortion, one of the most
hotly
debated
issues of the day. And besides, other stories haven’t had the phone number
for
groups like “Operation Rescue.”
3. A 20-year-old man in your city is
arrested on morals charges involving a 17-year-old girl. Your reporter writes
the story, and it includes the fact that the arrested person is the son of the superintendent
of schools. In editing it:
You leave
in the mention of the father, because you believe this fact is important to
readers.
The father is well-known locally, and such unpleasant publicity is one of the
prices of
fame. Also, you don’t want to be accused of covering up anything touching on
a public
official.
You delete
the reference to the father. He is in no way connected to the arrest, and you
reason
that to report the family connection would be unfair.
4. A woman armed with a gun takes
aim at the president, but a man intervenes by deflecting her arm. Later, after the newspapers
report the news incident, a newspaper writes about the man and identifies him
as gay. He had not revealed his sexual preference to his family, and he is
upset by this revelation. However, he has become a national hero. As the editor
of the newspaper, would you have printed this information about his personal
life? Justify your
decision.
5. There
was a car, semi accident and the driver of the car—a senator from your town--
was literally crushed at the scene. You send a reporter and photographer to
cover the accident. The reporter gets all the facts and writes a good story
that details the 78-yer-old drivers death. The
photographer gets pictures of the scene, and while there gets gruesome pictures
of the dead senator. Do you run the pictures and why or why not?
6) You are a staunch
Democrat and your brother—a republican—is running for mayor of your town. He is giving a speech at the local VA
hospital in which he is expected to admit that he had an affair with a patient
there. Your editor tells you to cover the story:
Would you:
Cover the story being sure to get only the facts and present
them in a professional manner?
Tell the editor you can’t cover the story and try to find
another piece to work on?
Explain your answer
7) You are the editor of a
large-circulation daily newspaper. A school shooting takes place on the other
side of the country. This is the third such shooting this year; in this one, a
15-year-old boy opened fire in a school cafeteria, killing two students and
wounding 22 others.
You know the story will be all over the TV
networks for days. Yet it is not a local story; it didn’t happen in your
community. You know some parents believe children in your city will be
frightened if they see this story splashed on your front page. What would you
do?
8) You are working on a story regarding a
man who was sexually assaulted by another man. The man who was assaulted will
not let you use his name, and the other man has not been located. A reliable police source says he is “fairly
certain” he knows the preditor’s name and gives it to
you as Charlie Henkles. What do you do in regards to the story? Do
you run with the story, use Henkle’s name, or do you
wait until you have further police support on the identification