Back to school

After a long, hot summer, it is back-to-school time.

I open my year Monday in my new capacity as visiting assistant professor of journalism at the University of Idaho. In the spring, I taught only one course, mass media ethics. It was a blast.

This fall, I will teach a full course load – ethics, mass media management and media writing. I’ll have roughly 85 students total in the three courses which means an enormous number of papers to read and grade every week.

One of my colleagues here told me last spring that I will work harder as a professor than I ever did as a news professional, and for a lot less money. True enough.

But having just about exhausted my patience with the professional world, I find that working with enthusiastic young people more than compensates for the loss of a bit of time and income. Looking back, I only wish I had made the transition to the academic environment a bit sooner.

In this blog, I’ll resume regular posts dealing with major ethical issues in the media world. Much of the material posted here will connect with the course work in my ethics class. I hope some of my students will join the conversation, although I won’t require participation.

As someone who worked nearly 40 years in the newspaper business (20 in senior management positions) I believe I have the street cred to teach ethics. But I don’t suggest for a moment that I have earned this opportunity because of an unblemished ethical track record.

Like most professionals, I tried to operate ethically and mostly succeeded, I think. But there were times when the decisions were more gray than black and white. And there were missteps, decisions that are ethically suspect now as I examine them in the rear-view mirror.

Some mistakes can be attributed to the heat of battle. In the professional world, ethical problems come at you in bunches every day and too often there is no time to really think through a problem. A gut reaction in the moment may feel right in that moment. But our gut – my student’s valued common sense – can be wrong.

I think that real-world record of good decisions and bad is what qualifies me to teach ethics.

If there is one lesson I can leave with my students, it is this: Being consistently ethical in the professional world requires preparation and, often enough, some real work. Professionals need a process for ethical decision making. Eventually, application of that process can become so internalized that most day-to-day problems can be resolved without breaking stride. But often enough to make us wary, problems arise that are too complex for simple resolution. That’s when an education in ethical decision making can kick in, producing a more thoughtful -- and ethically defensible -- result.

steve