How to be an ethical journalist...?

Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda: US Navy officer

and...

Arthur Ashe: Professional tennis player and Wimbledon Champion

What do these two have in common? They were both victimized by the news media. When is getting a good news story worth the harm and invasion of privacy? At what point have you gone too far?

These were the questions buzzing through my mind during class on Tuesday. And honestly, it's up to the journalist. But as a budding journalist, myself, I feel that it really is important to observe some ethical issues that have occured in the past, and to take my own stance. If I practice now, I think I'll be more prepared in the future when I'm faced with these.

First I want to talk about the men pictured above. We discussed their stories in class and both of them are tough calls for journalists. First, with Admiral Boorda, how would the "Newsweek" journalists who were investigating his Valor medals know that merely by asking a few questions, they would drive him to suicide? It's easy to look at his story now and blame the aggressive, villainous reporters for killing the innocent admiral. But really, before he killed himself, how could they possibly predict that he would do it? From the outside he seemed like any other public official: ready with his own little PR guy to face the news media and defend his honor. I would've run with the story and done the investigation. Even though it might portray him in a negative light, I would never have predicted the actual outcome.

But what about Arthur Ashe's story? Did he deserve to have his personal life displayed by letting the world in on his contraction of HIV? I understand "USA Today's" point that the story was certainly newsworthy. I think in this case, if Ashe expresses clear desire for his story not to be public knowledge, the media should have respected this. He didn't sign up to be a campaigner for HIV awareness, but that's what happened. Also, the story could've been run without his name, just to build HIV awareness and to highlight the progress of blood transfusions. My point is, this whole situation could've been handled differently. "USA Today" could've found a better way to follow the SPJ Code of Ethics and minimize harm, so they should've done so - even if it would take some of the sensationalism out of the story.

In class we discussed Dallin H. Oaks's devotional talk, "Where will it lead?" And we talked about how the media can be involved in the future of society. Here's what I think. as journalists we have such a power to influence public opinion. We have to take responsibility and use this power for the good of society. Yes, our stories and packages need to be interesting so viewers and readers will listen to them, but they don't need to be so sensationalized that ratings are the only things on people's minds. It is still our job to find news and report it and use our information to educate people. We have to do our job to help people make more informed, daily decisions. As a journalist, I realize that I'll face tough ethical situations where I'll have to make the call on whether or not to run a story or conduct an investigation or follow a tip.

Stories like Ashe's and Boorda's are tough calls, but they're the kinds of calls that journalists have to make - so what am I going to do? I'm going to do all that I can to be an ethical journalists and hope that I create more good in the world than harm in my journalism future.