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THE BORING – BUT NECESSARY – BIT • Remember, this is an academic essay and should draw on key texts, which must be properly referenced. • Essays submitted without a bibliography and without clear evidence of detailed background reading will fail. These essay questions are extremely topical so you will need to do internet research but you also need academic research; you must use scholarly books and/or journal articles. • Word count: Failure to stay within +/- 10% of 2,000 words will incur a penalty of 10% of the mark otherwise awarded.

• Question 1.

A reporter for a regional newspaper/broadcaster is sent out on a ‘death knock’ following the death of a young boy in a road accident. The reporter is a friend of the grieving mother. The mother answers the door, and in the interview reveals that she had been walking the boy to primary school when he had run out into the street to chase his football. She feels racked with guilt because she had not been watching him at the time – she had been busy texting on her mobile phone. She realised how often she and other parents were distracted by their phones. What are the ethical considerations of running such an interview? • A good answer should examine the ethical relationships between the interviewer, the interviewee, the publication, the reader and society as a whole. How does a journalist balance the competing interests between them? You must consider codes of conduct and philosophical theories of ethics.

1.b MUST ANSWER

Advice/context • We will look at philosophical theories of ethics in next week’s lecture and seminar – and their relationship to codes of conduct. • We will look at privacy and intrusion in depth in Week 5’s lecture – the week after next. • One excellent source of information about this comes from the IPSO Editors’ Codebook, which we’ll look at then. • We will also look at the ethics of interviewing – the balance of power between the interviewer and interviewee.