Last class of semester

Good afternoon,

Today is the last regular spring semester meeting of my mass media ethics class at the University of Idaho.

I won't speak for the students, but this has been a wonderful experience for me. I have taught before, but never on a semester calendar and never a conceptual (as opposed to skills) class. So this has been a bit of an experiment with 40-some students serving as my guinea pigs. They have been incredibly patient.

I built the class on a case study model, analyzing ethics problems drawn from the headlines meaning we could focus on the most significant ethical dilemmas media practitioners face at the moment.

Mostly, that worked, I think. The current media landscape is strewn with ethical land mines so it wasn't hard to find cases each week that related to our general areas of study such as conflict of interest, plagiarism, invasion of privacy and so on.

At the end of class Monday, one of my students said something that caught my attention.

He has enjoyed the class, he said, mostly because the discussions have been lively or relatively so.

But he doubted the value of the case-study model, he said. Solutions to most of the case studies could be had simply using common sense, he said. And "anyone on the street could answer these questions," he said.

If that is so, what is the value of the class, he asked?

I agree that many of the problems media practitioners face daily can be avoided/solved with a bit of common sense. But there is more to it than that.

There is a way of thinking about an ethical problem that can lead to a defensible, ethical, even moral resolution.

I want the students to understand that conflicting values are at the core of most ethical issues. The public's right to know vs. a media subject's right to privacy is a classic values conflict.

We resolve such a conflict applying our own personal values, our experience addressing similar problems in the past and through the modest application of classic moral theories, though many of us could not name or define them. Most important, media practitioners apply their craft values, as well. There are some rules, some widely held standards and a variety of ethical codes that are the foundation of the craft and that must be addressed when dealing with any ethical problem.

Working journalists have so internalized the process that most issues can be addressed quickly, in the field or on deadline. But the knotty problems, the Gordian knot problems, require a more thoughtful approach. And that is where a media ethics class can provide some guidance for the long haul. At least that is my hope.

Yes, as my student said, people on the street can certainly resolve the ethical dilemmas we addressed in class. But they won't bring craft values, standards and codes of conduct to the process and putting those before students and helping them understand their application seems important to me.

For any number of reasons, many J-school programs do not require ethics education of all majors in all disciplines. I understand the barriers. But I am grateful the University of Idaho understands the need and requires this class of all majors before they can graduate.

I will teach the course next fall and spring, more effectively, I hope. If the class is better, this semester's students can take the credit. As guinea pigs, they have all earned A's.

steve