I'll take Ethics for 1000

After last week's classes, and reading about Mayhill Fowler as well as Matt Drudge's behavior in the Bill Clinton/Danny Williams scandal, I found myself realizing that never journalist feels the need to be ethical. Mayhill Fowler will get stories by omitting the fact that she is a journalist. Because it is our responsibility to report the truth, I believe we should at least tell the truth while doing our job. Otherwise how can anyone trust us, or what we report? Which is why I find myself often doubting the things I read online. Yes, Fowler was able to get a great story of Clinton ranting on and on about a writer because of an article he wrote about him, but she pretended to be something she wasn't in order to get it. She was quoted in saying, "Of course he had no idea I was a journalist. He thought we were all average, ordinary Americans who had come out to see him. And, of course, in one sense, that is what I am." (see more here) Well if she was just an average, ordinary American she wouldn't write a story about her experience with Clinton. She tells her that she didn't have to say who she was because he didn't realize, but that is unethical in every sense of the word. Matt Drudge completely ignored journalism ethics when he continued to post stories about Bill Clinton's alleged child with Bobbi Ann Williams. He didn't check his facts and when he did realize that the story was not true, and that the paternity test was false, he didn't post it for everyone to see as he did with his original story. He didn't care that the paternity test was false, because he had already run away with the story that Danny Williams was Clinton's kid. His reporting was awful as well, which makes me see that a journalism degree IS useful (haha) and at least I am well aware of my journalism ethics. You won't find me omitting the fact that I am a journalist while interviewing a public figure anytime soon. I just don't understand how Mayhill Fowler and Matt Drudge don't see the fault in what they are doing.

Brave New Media

Another speaker we had in class today was Vadim Isakov, and he gave a presentation on new media. Not only was I shocked by some of the media that has been around that I didn't even know about, but I was thinking about how it's going to be in 10 or 20 years. Vadim told us about how Google has a free service 1-800-GOOG-411, and if you have any questions about pizza places near you or whatever information you need, Google offers it and you won't have to pay the expensive fees that 411 charges. BUT the reason why Google is doing this, is so they can have as many voices as they can recorded. They want to use the recorded voices to have web browsers use voice recognition, but isn't it a scary thought to know that Google knows our voices? I think so. Vadim was also showing us the "Augmented Reality" version of Esquire magazine, which was awesome to see this 3-D version of the magazine and the impressive content and design aspects of it. There is so much new media out there that I don't even know about, the music website midomi.com which allows for you to hum or sing a song that you like and they will find it for you, well depending on how well you hum or sing. At the end of the presentation, my professor Jeff Cohen, noted that it felt a little like Brave New World. It got me thinking that 10 years ago, cell phones were new, and now cell phones are so advanced with applications for everything and internet access at the touch of a button, what is the new technology going to be when I'm 30, 40, or 50? I bet it will be pretty scary, especially when I have to use the "When I was in college, they were just coming out with voice recognition web browsers," because who knows what it will be like at that time. Let's just hope that Google doesn't become like the Big Brother in Brave New World, but with the amount of information they have on each person, I don't think as far away from that as we'd like to think.

Kate Sheppard

We had a couple of speakers in class today, one of which was Kate Sheppard, IC Alum & currently a writer for Mother Jones magazine. Kate was giving us advice, knowing that entering the job market during these times is very scary. Though most of the class, including myself, has another year to go before we're dragged into the "real world," it made me think. Even though I could never imagine myself writing about the environment, or about cars, or business, I have to START imagining that because I have to willing to take whatever I can get at this point. Kate was a politics and journalism major at Ithaca and now writes about environmental policy. Her last piece of advice to us was to not be afraid of writing for a trade magazine and to have an open mind about it. I'll admit, I don't want to find myself in 5 years writing about oil or gas, but I guess we all have to start somewhere. A friend of my mom's has told me several times that her daughter was a journalist and pictured herself at the New York Times and is writing for a medical magazine. Not ideal. I don't think that I will really wrap my head around writing about one of those subjects (that doesn't really interest me at all) until I actually have to, but Kate's advice helped because at least I know now that it is a very real possibility. I just hope that like her, I will end up liking what I am writing about, because that would make it that much better.