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Preface| As you glance through this book, you will notice its features — text, illustrations, cases, photos — represent choices the authors have made. I think it's as important to point out what's missing as what's there, and why. I'll begin with what's been left out and conclude with what you'll find in the text.
First, you'll find no ethics codes in the book. Several media organizations have codes that are well thought out. Some media ethics texts include them. However, we agree with Anthony Insolia of Newsday when he says, “Rules and guidelines, unfortunately, cover only the pat situations,” and with Arnold Rosenfeld, of the Dayton Daily News and Journal–Herald when he says, “The decisions straight out of the book are easy. It is unfortunately the 2 to 3 percent for which there are no book rules that we earn our pay — and reputations.”
Second, you'll find no media bashing in this book. There's enough of that already, and besides, it's too easy to do. This book is not designed to indict the media; it's designed to train its future employees. If we dwell on ethical lapses from the past, it is only to learn from them what we can do to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
Third, you'll find no conclusions in this book — neither at the end of the book nor after each case. No one has yet written the conclusive chapter to the ethical dilemmas of the media, and I don't suspect that we will be the first.What, then, is in the book?
First, you'll find a diverse, up-to-date, and classroom-tested compilation of cases in media ethics. Authors from more than thirty institutions and media outlets contributed real-life and hypothetical cases to this text to help students prepare for the ethical situations they will confront in whatever areas of the media they enter. The authors believe case studies are the premiere teaching vehicle for the study of ethics, and this book reflects what we think are the best available.
Second, binding these cases together and providing a philosophical basis from which to approach them constitutes the text. While it intentionally has been kept succinct, the text introduces students to the relevant ethical theory that will help eliminate “quandary ethics,” which often results when cases are used as a teaching strategy.
Third, you'll find built-in discussion starters in the questions that follow each case. The questions at the end of the cases were written by the authors of each case, with the instructions that they were to be like concentric circles. The tightest circle — the micro issues — focuses only on the case at hand and the dilemmas it presents. The next circle — middle-range issues — focuses on the problem in its context, and sometimes manipulates the facts slightly to see if the decisions remain the same. The most abstract level — the macro issues — focuses on issues such as truth, equity, responsibility, and loyalty. Properly used, the questions can guide discussion from the particular to the universal in any case in a single class period.
The book may be used either as the main text for a media ethics course or as a supplementary text for ethics modules in courses on newswriting, media and society, advertising and public relations, and photojournalism. The book works well for teachers who like to use the Socratic method in their classes, or as resource material for lecture classes.
Our approach in this text is best illustrated by an anecdote from a class. One student had the last hand up after a particularly heated case study. When I called on her, she asked, “Well, what's the answer?” I was surprised that she asked the question, and I was surprised that I didn't have a ready answer. I joked my way out of the question by asking if she wanted “The Answer” with a capital “a” or a lowercase one. If she asked today, I'd respond differently. I'd tell her that the answer exists within her, but that it won't emerge in any justifiable form without systematic study and frequent wrestling with the issues.
That's what this book is about. The chapters direct you in some systematic way through the philosophy that has explored these questions for centuries. The cases will make you wrestle with that knowledge in scenarios not unlike ones you might encounter while working. Together, they might not enable you to find “The Answer,” but they might help you find your answer.
For the authors and contributors,
Philip Patterson
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2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education