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Essay on The Ethics Of The Media
| Date: |
02-24-03 2:35pm |
| Subject: |
Social Issues |
| Word Count: |
680 |
| Page Count: |
2.72 |
The Ethics of the Media
The Ethics of the
Media
The purpose of the media has become an
ongoing question since the large amount of conflicts between the consumer
and media. Why is the original purpose of the media so damn hard to figure
out? It is time to confront this issue instead of blowing it off by saying,
"We can never change the media, so why bother?" What kind of chickenshit
statement is that?! If there are so many people with so much power, surely
one of them realizes the downward spiral of the ethics of the media. I
feel my sole purpose of this paper is to tell everyone my ideas and viewpoints
on censoring the media.
Ooooooo, censor. What a bad word that is
when used in the same sentence with media. So many people believe censorship
is a bad thing, but there is no other solution in stopping the "bad press."
When I sit back and look at the stories about stories that are bad and
offending to someone, I realize something needs to be done. The media is
out of control. True, there are many informing and needed stories, but,
my god, how many times a day to we need to hear and read about how much
money O.J. Simpson has to pay the family of Ronald Goldman? We, as consumers,
need to sit back and ask ourselves, "What was the point of hearing or reading
that story?" Back to the censor issue. I, as an aspiring journalist, do
not believe in total and complete censorship of the media, but also, as
an aspiring journalist, I am embarrassed of some of the stories that are
run, for instance, when the crime scene photos of Jon-Benet Ramsey were
run in Globe magazine. Was there not anyone, an editor, a writer, or even
a custodian at Globe who thought, "Uh, oh. These photos may get us into
some trouble." Was there not a single sole who had enough ethics to try
and stop these pictures from being printed? This is where censorship comes
in. If I could do anything in the world, I would first, stop world hunger,
and second set up some guidelines and laws that the media must obey.
Guidelines such as, no digging through
peoples trash and no peeking in windows. Of course, we know that by law,
there is to be no peeking in windows, or over fences, but there is no one
at the editors desk to implicate these laws. There is supposed to be someone
there to prevent these stories from running, but remember, their paycheck
depends on how many copies are sold or how high the ratings are. This "censor
person" needs to have a set wage. If there was someone to stop these types
of occurrences, half of my problems with the media would be taken care
of. This may sound like a lame solution, but we need to start somewhere.
Obviously this is not a complete solution
to these problems with the media, so the next step would be to start using
the editors for weeding out the stories that are not giving some type of
information that the consumer wants and needs to hear or read. This is
also easier said than done. This solution also brings up questions like,
how does the editor know what stories the consumer wants to hear or read
about? That is the responsibility of the media. Let them take polls and
give every effort to find out what we want. Journalism will only survive
if it establishes a more valuable and clearly defined mission, (Morality
of Mass Media , Ellen Hume.)
I could write a book about all the things
I want to see changed in the media before I become a part of it, but I
will not. There should be a line drawn so that the media can be punished
for their wrongdoing. Many people agree that there should be a line drawn
and like it or not, that line is called censorship. Our founding fathers
did not want censorship on the media, but they probably did not think that
the media would be doing such a crummy job. I do not want to say that all
media is doing a bad job. Overall, they are doing a fairly good job, but
there is still a large amount of dirty press that needs to be cleaned up.
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