Rolling Stone's Rape Story - UVA

UVA/Rolling Stones

a.  The aftermath surrounding the story of the UVA/Rolling Stone article is a result of ethical concern.  The simple fact that the journalist decided to ignore the necessity of balance in her story is what created this uproar.

The journalist let her feministic views get ahead of ethical obligations to her profession.  Verifying information is a critical step in composing a well balanced story, with substantial facts.  The biggest concern in this issue is the magazine’s reaction.  Their cheap apology to the public threw their source under the bus, and they had no problem doing it in the name of damage control.  This is a perfect example of damage control PR.

b. The reporter in her mind thought she was serving her source right.  By being too emotionally invested, she failed cover all corners of the story.  As a result, more damage was done to the source than benefit.  Although the source proved to be untruthful, this journalistic mistake isn’t the product of only one side, but of both.  The source ended up with all the blame.  The enlightenment view is the perfect example for this story. Truth and objectivity. The reporter was unable to separate fact from her strong opinion and advocacy for women’s rights.  She also failed to collect her information objectively and tap into other sources for verification of fact.

c. The only privacy the source deserves is that of her identity.  Fact checking is a must so the story can be verified as true and not fictional.  Otherwise, anybody can come up with a story of assault and run to the news outlets, maybe even gain fame as a result. 

d. Plato linked truth to human rationality, neither the reporter nor the source were rational in their actions.  Which proves Plato’s theory right, since he claims truth comes from a pure world, to which humans had only indirect access.  Even if both sides admit to their mistakes, the damage has been done and cannot be erased.  The burden of transparency lies on both sides equally.  Based on Gans study on how stories became news, we can assume the reporter had the intention to uphold this cultural value: The need for and maintenance of social order.  Instead, her poor reporting resulted in the magazine’s failure in another cultural norm: leadership.

e. To be an activist and a journalist at the same time is difficult.  As a journalist you must adhere to ethical norms, which means, seeing the issue from every angle.  When we are passionate about a cause, we tend to stick to one side, become emotionally involved and connected.  It is even more difficult when you belong to an established news outlet.

Anuak Genocide

The overwhelming element of surprise I experienced while reading about the Anuak people of a small village in Ethiopia, massacred in cold blood, has thrown me into a sea of question marks.

If the death of hundreds of innocent people is irrelevant to major news outlets, what is exactly worthy of precious airtime?  What's the motive behind publishing a story, other than financial gain? what's really going on in our media?

Rawls' Communitarianism comes into play as a code of ethics when thinking of McGill's issue regarding the Anuak people.  The feeling of responsibility to justice gave her the courage to publish a story she didn't encounter first hand.   A story she heard of because a member of the community decided to talk.  There is beauty in the irony that McGill had to teach her Anuak student English in her ESL class in order to understand the truth of his journey from Ethiopia to Minnesota.

In the quest for justice, I think this code of ethics helped justify the risk she has taken, of publishing news coming from a new breed of information sourcing: earwitnesses.  As she relied mostly on the stories told by families and friends of those being massacred, she knew she would face some ethical issues surrounding the accuracy of her sources.
After extensive research, she felt it's her duty to publish this story and raise awareness, and rationality v. emotion comes into play here as well.  It became a matter of life or death, literally for the Anuak people.  McGill served as a small beacon of hope for their future, not a prosperous one, but one where they can somehow guarantee they would remain alive.

Rationality v. Emotion isn't helpful in this case, because the journalist is overcome by emotion, social responsibility and communitarianism.  This story came from her student, a person to which she has made a connection.  Though the rational in the manner in which she obtained her information is weak, her feelings about the issue were strongest, fed the drive in her to do something and fast.

William David Ross' Pluralistic Theory of Value can find a home in analyzing McGill's journey to uncover the truth.  He recommends two important duties: "to tell the truth and to nurture, help others achieve some measure of self-worth." (Patterson, Wilkins, 13)  McGill falls perfectly in those two categories.  She aspires to do both, tell the world about the horrifying truth and uncertainty of the Anuak people's future and survival of their kind, and help the refugees in Minnesota feel a sense of community by helping the ones left behind.

Realizing the weakness of her information source at first, McGill made sure to conduct extensive research and interviewed many "earwitnesses" so to have a uniformed story.  This proved to be helpful in remaining as ethical as possible in this unique situation.

It is unfortunate that even after she unveiled the truth about his small village in Ethiopia, no major news outlet was interested in her story.  This is a sad recurring tradition in our media today, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died, civilians that is, in the revolution against the regime, and yet minimal coverage has been provided to us.  As we speak, hundreds of Syrian refugees in the Turkish and Lebanese borders are freezing to death.

Where is our human sensitivity? where is the social justice guaranteed by the UN?  Not only are these children freezing to death, they have been without education for more than 3 years.  It is a reality not to be forgotten or ignored, but it is surely less important than the impact a few cartoons has had on the world.

In the corporate world, I foresee many instances where ethical challenges can be thrown my way.  Having worked in higher education for 3 1/2 years, I am sure to find obvious differences in the routine operations and whatever ethical issues that come with.
With my intentions to concentrate on the P.R. aspect of the lovely corporate world, I hope to never have to compromise on my morals or dignity to satisfy and please those whose signatures are artfully crafted on my paycheck every month.  Though P.R. pretty much means damage control, and by control it sometimes requires dwelling in that gray area of truth to keep everyone happy, both consumers and the higher powers that be.

With the unfortunate current events in France, its officials have to use all resources at hand to do some serious damage control.  France is now being criticized for its poor intelligence in the war against terror.  Having been under surveillance for several years, these terrorists shouldn't have been able to successfully commit such heinous crimes.  The older brother's trip to Yemen should have raised the biggest red flag that should have sent him straight to prison.  What I see is unethical in France, is the poor efforts in helping the immigrants fully integrate with the main stream french society and feel genuine patriotism.  Even if they are French born, they are secluded in the outskirts of Paris, in these ghettos where no hope for proper education survives or the commitment for success strives.  They are placed there, bound to fail, their easiest refuge is crime.  France cannot go on the news and ask for its people to be united, it cannot scream its moto of Fraternity and Equality, those two don't exist in those ghettos.  Racism is prominent in France, and last week was a simple proof.

Islam is not welcome at the Louvre

The one thing I admire about living in this country, is its ethical qualities even if it isn't perfect at times.  Having grown up in a different country, (Morocco) I came to see the big differences in society, morals, norms and simply ethics.  Even to the simplest of human rights, a copy of a birth certificate can cost you many please and thank you's as well as $30 under the table.  You are made to feel sorry you are asking and hope for a yes.  This makes you question your existence, since your own proof of birth can't be produced.  Makes you want to never complain next time you're in line at the DMV!  For this, I appreciate working and serving ethically, remembering this, will help me make the right decisions.

From Module 1 & 2, I was so happy to have acquired new skills to put on my resume.  I can finally appreciate a photo taken by a professional camera and never use iPhone pictures for christmas cards ever! again!  I am happy to have been introduced to Final cut pro, I was never exposed to film making or video making, and experiencing its making form little clips, pictures and audio to enjoying the final product is so rewarding.  It's like motherhood :)

Seeing that it's a big issue today, I would like to talk more about ethical issues in the media.  There is great injustice and not much is being done to change that.  I would like to understand more how the media world works, especially news outlets.