Let's get into opinion in this week's ethics discussions. Specifically, when is it OK to have them, how are they manipulated and when is it not OK to express them?
- Campbell Brown asserts herself
- how do marketing efforts affect doctors' opinions of prescription drugs?
- Gwen Ifill has a book coming up
- what's the difference between asking hard questions and being out to get an interviewee?
- how does the framing of words affect our opinions (scroll to chapter titled "Giving Us What We Want" and watch segment)
- when should people disclose their agendas (read segment on "embedded blogger" after Palin poll)
- how do our personal relationships affect our opinions and actions?
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Weekly Ethics Roundup
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Gwen did a fantastic job Thursday night. She did not display the exasperation that Charlie Gibson did a few weeks ago. If anything she was too moderate and let Palin get away with too much question dodging.
I think when it comes to intimate relationships between two people, it should only create a concern when other people are affected by it, such as tax payers. I don't think Tania deLuzuriaga should have resigned.
I agree. Gwen was not a threat to the debate. I would like to think we have more faith in our journalists than to think because they have a book that they can no longer be non partisan and neutral. Gwen Ifill knew what she had to do as a moderator, despite her book.
I don't think you can ignore the happiness Gibson showed after trapping Palin in his interview. Clearly Palin was caught off guard with the confusing question. The Bush Doctrine is a vague policy often used by left-leaning speakers to discredit action in Iraq. I don't completely agree with this argument about "gotcha journalism." I understand hard questions are clearly an essential part of journalism, but when a line of questioning leads to embarrass someone it is out of line.
Campbell Brown has recently inspired me to the same degree that Ifill and Lehrer have disappointed me. Lehrer focused too much on debate rules while Ifill failed to pursue answers to her questions when the vp candidates sidestepped the topics and chose to go off with their own campaign rhetoric. A few weeks ago Brown pressed Tucker Bounds to give her an answer to a question she had posed to him, something he should have been able to answer since he was advocating a certain position regarding Sarah Palin's executive credentials. Bounds dodged the question repeatedly, as we saw both VP candidates do during the debate. The difference is Ifill failed to do what I commend Brown for doing: pushing for an answer to the question posed rather than allowing the interviewee to circumvent the topic. While I believe that Ifill did a great job of being nonpartisan, she failed to push the candidates to answer her questions. Several times both Biden and Palin ignored Ifill's question and chose to speak about a different topic altogether and faced no criticism from Ifill (though she did at one point note that neither candidate answered her question, she then moved on). While Brown may be on the verge of opinion, she is doing something that we see more often on The Daily Show than in mainstream journalism: holding interviewees accountable for their words and actions.
For someone who professes to know a lot about words/shaping images, Frank Luntz comes across as extremely arrogant. But besides that, he is essentially manipulating people...which I don't have a problem with since that's his job as a stategist. But, I think it's sneaky and deceptive (so basically morally wrong, but professionally acceptable)...although it's the public's own fault for choosing to be uninformed. Still, he's giving PR a bad name.
I disagree with Michael Getler that "all journalism students are journalists"...they are studying journalism...big difference. Anyways, the story written by the NYU student seems a bit passive aggressive, but other than that I don't have a problem with it. It's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that she wrote the article for a blog. If so, she has absolute freedom to say whatever she wants. The school is just having a tizzy because it doesn't agree with the content. Besides, bloggers aren't subject to the same journalistic codes as newspapers/mags./etc. choose to inflict upon themselves.
Yeah, I found the Frank Luntz piece a bit wrong too. We are being manipulated by language and we don't even know it. This is also the reason why so many gimmicks exist in the world. Besides being desperate at times, they market their product through language and we believe it. I guess I am jealous by the fact I am not getting paid to manipulate people through language.
Post a Comment