Week 5: Response to Discussion One and Two

ThursdayFeb 8 at 2:12am

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Citizen journalists and bloggers should not be held to the same standard as professionals. I believe that some ethics should be retained, such as telling the truth and accrediting sources properly. The ethical principle that I believe should be set apart is opinion. Professional journalists are not supposed to show bias or opinion; however, many bloggers and citizen journalists will base their careers off having a strong opinion or a bias. A good example of this is a sports blog that follows a specific franchise or team. The blog will often show clear biases towards the team in question, which is perfectly acceptable because that is why people are reading the blog in the first place. This leaves room for the citizen journalist or blogger to properly make their point.

There are risks included without holding citizen journalists and bloggers to ethical standards, such as withholding bias. The main risk is that those who follow the specific blogger or citizen journalist could be misinformed. This is especially prominent in politics, where people will follow right or left wing political blogs without considering alternate opinions. This could have similar effects as restricting freedom of speech, where it becomes more difficult to find the truth. If enough people begin to follow blogs and listen to citizen journalists, the influence of the citizen journalist might become to high, leading to a lot of misinformation. While an ethical code may not be necessary for citizen journalists, it should still be stressed that they are responsible for their words and actions, which may influence other people.

Source:

Jacquette, D. (2007). Journalistic ethics: Moral responsibility in the media. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.