I wish I had it recorded but in print will have to do. Below is my introduction to UW Madison Chapter’s PRSSA Conference. You can also find some great tips and cover by searching #PRSSA and #uwconf on Twitter.
I won’t ask you to, but who here can define journalism? If I were to ask each of you, everyone would have a different response, similar, but different.
Almost 100 years ago, journalism emerged and was defined by Lippman as the translator between the public and the policy making Elites. Simple. Straightforward.
Now we have dozens of different definitions and even more subcategories: analytic, backpack, community, enterprise, immersive, mobile, pack, tabloid… you get the idea.
Over thousands of years ago, ethics was easily defined by a few different principals. Aristotle established the Golden Mean principal of ethics, basically it meant that everyone was to strive for the balance between two extremes.
Similarly golden, the golden rule was established. Simple profound, and could be applied to everything in writing and in life.
Unfortunately, long before journalism was established, multiple layers of ethics soon overlapped the golden mean and the golden rule, leaving us with thousands of ethical questions to be asking ourselves.
In this new media age, with so many guidelines, it seems that we can’t do anything without breaking some ethical standard.
We even have people arguing the utilitarian John Stuart Mill and his ethical stance called “the greatest-happiness principle” which holds that one must aim to do that which will produce the greatest happiness among all beings.” How does that not cover it all?
While we have an assortment of speakers here tonight to tell you about new media and a bit about ethics, I would like to express two ideas with you. Think about them throughout the keynote and breakout sessions.
The first is this: have you noticed that we no longer blaze journalists who are the first to report to us? Think to any of the last shootings. Has there ever been a report, the first on a story that was completely correct? That gave the exact number of fatalities? That described the shooter with absolute detail? We have come to trade in ethical standards for being fed information quicker, to being connected, and to being the first to share news with each other.
In a worldwide journalistic mission of getting the story, and getting it first, we sacrifice what historic media interpreters would call professionalism. What were once ethical standards are now breached with the new media methods of being a journalist.
The second note is something that everyone here has heard before, but has yet to be strongly applied to journalism.
With great power comes great responsibility.
We are now more digitally powerful than ever before, most would agree that its beyond governmental control, and definitely beyond the control of one single ethical standard.
With great power comes great responsibility. This means we need to self-regulate ourselves. The age of having ethical standards has passed. There is no right ethical move, or wrong ethical choice, only actions that are popular and actions that are not. It’s up to us to define ethics for ourselves. If we set them correctly, only then will I buy the idea that were journalists.
Now that you have some things to think about and without further ado, I would like to introduce our keynote speaker of the night Theo Keith, reporter for WISC-TV
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