Lecture 8: Ethics in Communication

Lecturer and former TV reporter Donna Meiklejohn presented the ‘Ethics in Communication’ lecture, which I found interesting. Donna showed a series of advertisements at the beginning of the lecture, and asked whether anyone found them offensive. I personally did not think any of the ads were offensive, but it is possible to see that quite a few would have been off putting for other groups in society. I found some very clever, such as Air Asia’s “Cheap enough to say, Phuket I’ll go.” I thought the Jim Bean, “The Girlfriend” ad, was unappealing, as with many alcohol related advertisements it reinforced the male/female stereotypes, but it lacked wit and thus came across slightly stupid in my opinion.

We then examined what contributes to a journalist making decisions about the ethical or unethicalness of a story or task. Donna told a story of her first ‘death knock’, and said that although she was very apologetic to the family over the years a journalist tends to distance themselves emotionally from situations, which is something that has be bought up previously this semester.

I found the ethics theory part of the lecture interesting, the difference and the overlapping of areas such as deontology, consequentialism and virtue. I found the consequentialism theory slightly strange, as I find it hard to believe in some situations the end could justify the means.

In response to the question, do ethics codes fail, Donna explained that many of the organisations that fund the groups that enforce ethics codes are major media groups, and thus it is often unlikely that their ethics will come into question. This is a point that has been raised many times this semester, that major mass media organisations broadcast what they believe, which results in the huge problem of society only absorbing a particular perspective on issues, which will continue to eventuate the close mindedness of society.

Carter's photograph

Finally, we looked at three news stories and how ethical it was for them to be published. The first was Kevin Carter’s image of the young girl and vulture. It is my belief that it was not an unethical photograph, in the situation Carter was in it would have been near impossible to help every starving child before or after taking a photo. Furthermore, helping one child to food would not have made much impact to the overall situation, but publication of a photograph such as this spreads awareness and can create a bigger impart on society resulting in contribution for the people in situations such as this.

The second story was a group of nude images of Pauline Hanson. The photographs were from the 1970s, so released approximately 35 years after they had been taken and upon examination were revealed to not even be of Hanson. Sunday Herald Sun columnist Robin Riley wrote “Public people are public property, whether they like it or not.” While this statement is true, I would assume that the Australian news would have higher priorities regarding Pauline Hanson’s policies than publishing tabloid worthy images.

The third image was of a naked Lara Bingle. As I have no interest in her, it was useful Donna explained the situation. From my point of view the images, while probably inappropriate, were Lara Bingles fault, and more likely a publicity stunt for her upcoming reality show than an invasion of her privacy.