Ethical Dilemmas

1. Conflict of interest is a very big problem in journalism. A journalist has the trust of many thousands of people. Therefore great power comes great responsibility and must not use this power with a specific point of view or a personal objective. A good journalist should not compromise public awareness due to selfish reasons.

An example would be: A journalist is reporting a story about an election and is in favour of a certain party. The journalist then writes a story that make that certain party look good.

The fairness of the election will be compromised just because of a journalist’s conflict of interest.

2.Plagiarism is another big one on my list. Plagiarism basically is the copying and pasting of other’s work without asking for permission and crediting the source or claiming other’s work as your own. I find this very very unacceptable. Taking other people’s effort for your own good and not giving them the appropriate amount of credit is an extremely selfish and unethical act.

let’s say a journalist copies something from someone else, and it turns out very good. However, the person who wrote the original was not credited and did not get what he deserved. this is just wrong

3.Another problem journalists face is any offending or distasteful content. This is a little tricky to deal with, one must make sure that there is no published content that is inappropriate and not offending while maintaining the drama of the story.

For example, a journalist quotes a part of an interview that contains some swear words. He can censor out all of them but lose all drama of the interview, and not selling it off as well as it could have or he can put in a equally dramatic but milder version of the interview and still selling it well.