Lecture 5: Ethics

In this lecture we had guest speaker Dr John Harrison. He discussed some of the basic ideas behind ethics such as Deontology, Consequentialist and Virtue Ethics and which one best relates to journalism. In this lecture we went through many advertisement and judged whether it was ethical or unethical and tasteful or not tasteful, which was interesting to see all the different types of advertising and how they were received. Here is one example of the adds we were asked to judge:

Deontological Theory

-       Deontology is basically the idea that an act is considered ethical if you follow the rules and does not take into consideration the consequences of the action.

-       Key aspects

o   Rules, principles and duties

-       The duty of a journalist is to report the truth to the public with an unbiased view, but can only obtain the information through ethically means and not for example by hacking into phones.

Consequentialism

-       This theory revolves around the outcome of an action and that getting the right our good outcome is the only factor that matters

-       The end may justify the means

-       Disregards the means of the action as long as the outcome is good.

Virtue Ethics

-       this is the idea that ‘goodness’ or ‘happiness’ comes from the good happiness of character

-       These habits are ‘virtues’ such as courage, justice, temperance and prudence

-       These habits are the ‘golden mean’ of behavior

Deontological ethics is the way things are done in journalism practice and professional communication, meaning that journalist have to decide whether their action is moral and disregard the outcome of their action.

 There are different types of codes, which are:

-       MEAA code, AFA code, AANA code, PRIA code

MEAA basic ideas are

-       Honesty, Fairness, Independence, Respect for the right of others