Media Ethics and the Ethical Journalist - Case Study Example

College Media Ethics Introduction The debate that surrounds ethics in journalism and news reporting and how these relate to both integrity and privacy has experienced rapid changes over the past two decades. With the recent developments in social media through the expansion of internet usage, there are increasingly more methods through which journalists can access and gather information through means that may be ethical or otherwise (Foreman, 2010). Arthur Ashe’s case who was a world renowned AIDS activist and tennis player as well as an anti-apartheid advocate provides a very good example on how individuals’ privacies can be violated by the press as is the case with USA Today. The media house’s reporter went ahead and released the story on Ashe’s health condition overseas prior to Ashe’s consent which forced the athlete to publicly admit his health condition when he was not yet prepared. Discussion The actions of the reporter were not in line with how journalists even back them ought to have conducted themselves especially in regards to moral and ethical duties as a major newspaper like USA Today. The chief ethical issue that arose out of this case had to do with the reporter’s express refusal to wait a little longer before publishing the story. The reason that he gave for doing exactly this was that the public needed to get to know this information. These actions of the reporter did not serve any level of good informative justice to Arthur Ashe (Foreman, 2010). There are various ethical facts that a reporter or journalist has to take into consideration before making an ethical decision as regards to Arthur Ashe’s case. One thing that we have to consider also is that the athlete put himself out there in the public domain the moment he decided to be a professional tennis player and become one of the leading opponents of the South African apartheid regime. A journalist could have therefore argued that a person of such social standing could be appropriately considered as a celebrity and social icon (Foreman, 2010). The other fact that had to be considered was that Ashe being an athlete, he had connections and obligations to his sponsors or some media outlets. This therefore means that he was contractually obligated to maintain a specific image. All these factors mean that he had to maintain some form of responsibility to his sponsors and fans in social and economic terms as well. The person to whom a journalist is responsible to will always tend to change depending on the circumstance. Journalists always tend to state that they are ultimately responsible for giving the public information that is of their interest regarding social icons like athletes and politicians. This degree of responsibility will always depend on Ashe’s relative importance in the said society. In this case, the claimants are largely restricted to his sponsors and fans. This means that the greater public is not a claimant since Arthur Ashe does not hold a responsibility to them to the same degree that a politician would. A good example is that politician who engages albeit privately in homosexual behavior while publicly rebukes pro-gay legislations do not deserve any form of privacy since his nature of work is largely if not wholly defined by his commitment to public service (Foreman, 2010). In this case however, his position in society does not accord him the same level of responsibility that a politician is accorded. He almost exclusively owes responsibility to the companies and individuals that sponsor and support him. The reporter should have acted in a manner that was guided and informed by social utility. The moral agent has to decide which of the gathered information is essential to the targeted audience in correctly understanding what is being communicated by the reporter. If this principle is followed, it tends to eliminate the common appeals of morbid curiosity, sensationalism, voyeurism as well as ridicule as a justification of invasion of a public figure’s privacy (Foreman, 2010). The most possible harm that could occur due to the athlete’s non-disclosure of his health status would manifest itself in violation of his contract with sponsors. This contract violation does not give a journalist the ethical duty to report to the greater public unless its magnitude would affect others that are not within the athlete/sponsor relationship. In this instance, the said journalist acted unethically when she or he decided not to give the Athlete the requested 36 hour delay before running the requested story. That having been said, there are various other ways that the said journalist could have acted that would not have breached her ethical code of conduct as a journalist. The first step that the journalist and the newspaper’s editor could have done was to requested Ashe for an interview on a sensitive topic and upon the athlete’s consent, they could have requested to have a confidential conversation on the circumstances that surrounded his contraction of the HIV virus. After all these issues have been sorted out, the journalist could have inquired whether the athlete would be interested in working with him in developing a story that would go a long way in supporting HIV/AIDS awareness in the society (Foreman, 2010). All or any of these alternatives would have gone a long way in honoring the reporter’s ethical responsibilities as well as honoring the critical field of investigative journalism. It should also be seen that by pursuing any of these available alternatives, the best case scenario would involve both respecting the athlete’s privacy while the worst case scenario would be the rejection by the athlete in participating in the writing of this piece. The reporter’s most important responsibility is in upholding his or her dignity as a journalist. It can be viewed that his actions were largely motivated by appealing to morbid curiosity, sensationalism as well as ridicule since the story’s content did not in any way or form concern the greater public (Foreman, 2010). His actions did much more harm to the athlete and his young family than they did any good for his sponsors or to an extent the society at large. Conclusion A neutral observer would observe that the general good was not present in this instance at all since the reporter’s motives were purely selfish with the hollow motive of increasing sales for his or her publication. In the event that the athlete would have refused to talk about this story, the journalist could have requested the athlete to offer an ‘anonymous interview’ which he would later on spin it as a human interest story. The reporter could have convinced the athlete that the interview would go a long way in educating the public about the disease and how to minimize the risk of exposure to the virus. This would go a long way in protecting the journalist’s ethical reputation as well as guaranteeing the athlete’s as well as his family’s privacy. Work Cited Foreman, Gene. The Ethical Journalist: Making Responsible Decisions in the Pursuit of News. Chichester, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Internet resource Read More