Code of Ethics

I agreed with all that the Poynter Institute had to say about what the code of ethics should be. I also thought the question they told you to ask yourself (how willing would you be to explain your editing process/techniques to the public) made a good point. If you had to explain certain things to the public would you do the same thing or would you do them differently. I think it makes the reporter more cautious about what they are doing. It is our job to show reality and not to create it... that's for movie directors. This is why I think it is important to follow the "do not add" rule, because when you add certain elements it changes reality, which isn't what journalism is.

staging and stuff

The parts I liked in Dave Wertheimer's Staged, Staging, Stages was when he said that our very presence alters the situation from its original position. We and our equipment are a distraction. One good tip he gave was to use eye contact, so as not to be a "guy/girl with camera" but "Erin who happens to have a camera". Also he said to leave the wireless mic in the room and leave, that way people are really not intimidated. Funny, I thought. Further, yea, staging is really an ethical issue. I remember in class Lynda talking about a reporter asking someone to say something in a certain way... not okay. Its nice to see that this guy knows it's not just a "line in the sand".

Staging Video

Obviously, staging video is ethically wrong and is a great way to get you fired and forced into a new profession. However, there are little nuances that maybe confusing to young journalists. I remember in class, someone had a question about cutting video in and out of an interview between segments of an interview. It was said that you couldn’t cut peoples interview so that there words are distorted and the meaning is changed. However, we were encouraged to cut the best part of our video to the beginning if it is good for the interview. So you can see it is a fine line between the ethics of cutting video and good video editing techniques. It is something that young journalist must be careful to learn these fine lines and remember down the line during their journalistic career. These are difficult lessons that we all must learn and it is good for us as students to learn the basics of this fundamental question in journalism.

What stuck out to me about the story about KLAS, was what the director said ... the station had gone too long without a discussion about video editing. This to me could stop a lot of problems from happening. When I wrote for a small weekly in North Carolina, there were a lot of things that stuck out to me as un ethical, but there was never anytime to voice it. I think that if newsrooms regularly take the time to not only remind the staff of the stations ethical code, but also to listen to the staff as to what the station might be doing wrong, I think the news would take great steps forward.
I realize that getting the whole station together at any point and having the time to have this discussion is hard to find, but I believe that they people form KLAS will tell you the wish they had found the time to review ethics.

slidng audio

There seems to be some gray areas when it comes to ethics in journalism, and sliding audio is one of them. I think it's always good to ask yourself what purpose the audio editing serves. Is it just to clean up a story and make it sound better or is it to make people think something happend that actually didn't? Even when editing my audio stories, I wondered if it was okay to cut and paste a pause or someone saying "umm" and inject it somewhere else in a story as a transition betweeen sentences. I appreciate the sectin of the article on using file tape and the questions one should ask when using file tape. Sometimes people are entertained by watching really tragic events and enjoy watching it for the sensational value of it, just as people are entertained by violent movies. Yet, the fact that some things we see on tv news is real life with real people suffering should be more imortant than the publics desire to see something sensational.

Staging

My only experience with photographs is the ones of my friends and family that are often goofy, out of focus and most importantly, almost always staged. Not only is it easy to visualize the shot you want/need, but it only makes sense to position subjects to attain a certain goal. I feel it is much easier to be accurate in print because there are several levels of fact checking that must be done. Mistakes are made, of course, but who is to say if what is happening in the picture actually took place or not? A good journalist must always be alert and focused on not only the subject, but the surroundings and the details of each moment. As a photographer, there may be just a few brief moments that are available to produce a solid product and they can be missed if not prepared. When taking pictures for this class, I found myself getting frustrated when reality didn't match up to the way I had envisioned they would. It has definately been a learning experience in that you can't force the events you want to happen you have to work with what you are given.

Ethics from the Poynter Institute

Some of the suggestions written in this article I thought were common sense, but they were things I never would've thought of on my own. For example, when the author talked about taking a storm picture and then addding sound from before or after the shot was taken isn't ethical. Why I can understand this fact, I still don't think I would've thought of it on my own.

Also, I liked the refresher about not using songs unless it was taken from the scene of your story. Using soundtracks or pre-recorded audio is not ethical. The songs must have been hearded at the scene that day.

I liked the idea of using the front page story check to see if your story is ethical. You must ask yourself that if a newspaper called you and wanted to run that story on the front page, would it be okay?