W1- Journalistic Ethics.

Reflection from ‘Shattered Glass’ by Buzz Bissinger and ‘Sticky Issues in Gumshoe Journalism’ by Lawrence Zuckerman. 

The line between public interest and personal privacy is quite ambiguous and hard to be clearly defined especially when it involved with ethics. Lawrence Zuckerman (1988) described the use of hidden camera in ‘Sticky Issues in Gumshoe Journalism,’ while sometimes hidden camera could be widely used by reporters to disclose the so called “moral” issue but with such “immoral” way? That is, while the reporters try to use hidden camera which people might call it immoral way to discover the ugly truth, people could probably agree with what reporters have done as moral issue after the truth was declared. For example, the case of Boston locksmith’s store as bookie joint in the reading, it could be concealed forever if no one try to use this immoral way to figure it out. It is true that there are always judgments no matter how the reporters get the information; sometimes we, as the readers, just can’t help but need this kind of person who has ambitions and justice to discover the truth as watchdogs, or as journalists. However, I am not saying that I would totally support the usage of hidden equipments, if it is not about finding out the ethical truth, it might be illegal or unacceptable by the audience, which is why I could never give the direct answer. Getting away from the usage of Journalists, surveillance equipments could be helpful. 

Let’s think about the surveillance system around street, high way, department stores or banks…etc for instance, that really helps when the accidents happened. What I am trying to say is equipment is still an equipment, is always a cold machine, what people should realize is the necessary of using it, how much risk and responsibility does one could afford, or what if maybe it could be worthier to society and citizens than doing nothing.                       

However, how people could distinguish from the line between a respectable journalist and a betrayer of journalistic practice is still questionable. For the case of Stephen Glass, in the contemporary society with freedom of speech and publishing, the role of journalists should be expected to represent the opinions of people in writing stories which may reflect and contain almost every aspects of an issue in the most truthfully representative way. Hence, what he had done should be penalized to give back the audience proper and impartial images of professional journalist instead of a professional story maker. Therefore, I would suggest that conveying all of the most meaningful information of an affair is the most important achievement to play the role of journalists in practice properly. While journalists can never be completely objective since they are all human beings, Glass had already been way too far to tell the truth.