Monday, February 21, 2011

Journalism Ethics in a Digital Age?

Colleague Prof. Hendrickson pointed me to this piece by Stephen Ward on what we should be teaching about ethics in this new era of digital media and journalism.  Or more specifically, how can our students "use the new media tools responsibly."  Pretty much all professionally-oriented journalism programs teach ethics - but do they address the kinds of new situations our students may find themselves in?
Ward argues that in our ethics course, we no longer have a consensus on what is ethical, despite the existence of myriad codes of ethics (such as the Society or Professional Journalists'), and there is no widely-accepted framework of ethical principles.  Ward offers five features he suggests should be in any journalism ethics course:
  1. Start from the student's media world.
  2. Assist students with reflective engagement
  3. Insist on critical thinking, not on fashionable excuses being offered
  4. Be transitional - talk about the process of getting to a new ethics standard
  5. Be global in your teaching (we aren't the only ones with ideas about what is ethical)
Not a bad starting point, I think.

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