Ethics (Reflection of lecture 5)

The news of the world scandal, in which a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, hacked into cell phones of thousands of people, has caused quite a stir. It is a no brainer to say what the paper did was wrong, irresponsible and unethical. Recently, channel 9 news faked live crosses to the Daniel Morcombe search scene, leading people to believe that they were really near the search site and giving accurate information. This is unethical as well. Therefore the fifth lecture was really useful, as we learnt about ethics. What is ethical and what is not?

Dr John Harrison came to give us an overview of ethics. I finally feel like I can differentiate between unethical, ethical, good and bad advertisements, thanks to his lecture! He explained to us that just because something is tacky doesn't mean its wrong. There is a difference between bad taste and poor ethics. Something can have bad taste but can have high ethics, or can have good taste but is highly unethical. 

I feel that this advertisement is ethical, because it is promoting the adoption of animals and it has a pretty good taste as well (maybe a little too sexy?).

Dr. Harrison also spoke about the 3 frameworks that describe ethics. They are deontology, consequentialism as well as virtue ethics. Deontology is based on rules, principles and duties. (Example: what are the ethical duties of a journalist? duty to inform the public the truth, to be unbiased, don't hack the phones, gather your information with integrity.) The code of ethics are deotological, so he advised us to follow the cod, so we can't be wrong. Consequentialism is about getting the right outcome. (Example: You can inoculate the whole village against Malaria, even if some people are allergic to malaria, since it would be good for most people). Virtue ethics is about who you are as a person. Goodness/happiness comes from good habits and character. I think the best journalists are those with good habits and character. 

Dr. Harrison's lecture was highly informative and useful. I think ethics is a really important and all journalists should be familiar with the code of ethics. Invading other people's privacy through hacking of phones, falsifying and giving inaccurate information to the public is unacceptable and irresponsible.