Blog 6: Ethics in Journalism
In this week’s class, I learned
about the history of ethics most valuable philosophers Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle. Socrates is credited for introducing the topic of ethics as a
philosophical discipline in the Western intellectual tradition, meaning that he
engaged in, and encouraged his students to engage in, theoretical discussions
about values, good character, and good behavior (Rosenstand, 392). Plato,
Socrates student, expanded on that and created the Academy that furthered the
pursuits of ethical learning. He is also noted for his ethical theory on Forms
or an ideal abstraction and sole source of each thing that resembles it
(Rosenstand, 413). Aristotle was the opposite as he thought the knowledge cloud
be directly sought and found in reality. Aristotle theorized the Golden mean or
the balance of ethics in moderation.
This
week’s ethical dilemma brings us into the journalistic practices of Dr. Sanjay
Gupta CNN's medical correspondent. Dr.
Gupta is getting ethical heat brought upon him for commonly interchanging his
doctoral skills with the stories he covers for CNN. He's been filmed performing
surgical feats at several locations such as Haiti or the earthquake crises
currently going on in Nepal. He recently performed craniotomy and saved the
life of an 8 year old in Nepal. Other journalists seem to think that he is
performing these deeds for self-promotion and is making the story about
himself. The ethical question here today is should journalistic practices and
medical intervention be separate entities to prevent self-promotion?
Personally
I feel that what Dr. Gupta is doing is ethically acceptable. Anytime you put
yourself on television you are promoting yourself. There are hundreds or maybe
thousands of journalists that are promoting the story of the earthquake
disaster in Nepal right now and are standing by as the death toll rises. Dr.
Gupta is going above and beyond what is required of him and not only promoting
that Nepal needs humanitarian aid, but that it's in desperate need of medical
attention. I feel that if he has the skills to be able to help someone then why
should he standby to make other journalists happy? As a doctor, he took a
Hippocratic Oath which requires he performs in situations such as this. I
believe that what he is doing is virtuous as a person who does what he does
best and does it excellently on a regular basis (Rosenstand, 392). We may see
some of the good that Dr. Gupta does on television, but what about all the good
that he does off camera? Does that make him a better or worse journalist? The
Socratic principle states: that truth should not be confused with appearance.
The appearance of something -a person, or a situation-is not necessarily the
same as its true nature (Rosentand, 407). So could Sanjay Gupta be a heartless
man off camera? It's possible, but after seeing his actions across the world I
would like to think he's a man of reason.
Works Cited
Rosenstand, N. (2013). Virtue
Ethics from Tribal Philosophy to Socrates and Plato. In The Moral Of The Story
An Introduction To Ethics (7th ed., p. 392, 407, 413). New York, New York:
McGraw-Hill Companies.
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