How Good People Make Tough Choices Summary

In Rushworth Kidder’s book “How Good People Make Tough Choices,” Kidder provides a series of different methods, codes and examples of what it means to be an ethical journalist. He gives examples of different situations where a person’s ethics may be tested and what would be a good way to deal with these situations. He starts by explaining the difference between things that are considered to be right-versus-right, and those that are considered to be right-versus-wrong.

While right-versus-wrong can be easily distinguish situations that are right-versus-wrong often include one of four dilemmas in choosing what it truly right. The first is Truth versus Loyalty.

Truth versus Loyalty is something that can become an issue in journalism as you start

Maybe an athlete who is also a close friend has not been playing necessarily well and has an abundance of trade rumors around his name. ESPN features a show entitle “First Take” where two prominent journalist give their opinions on that day’s hottest sports topics. One of the shows members, Stephen A. Smith, at times will acknowledge the fact the he has a personal relationship with an athlete prior to stating his opinion. That relationship doesn’t sway how he discusses a certain athlete is performing. If they are playing well then it is acknowledged, if they aren’t playing well then they are called out for

In sports journalism plagiarism is extremely easy to spot simply because more than likely the report took every work from a press release and didn’t credit it as where they got their information from. The element of social media has played an enormous role as to why it is almost impossible to show mercy in these type of situations. I’ve seen plenty of example of a journalist reporting information that is later proven to be untrue which is why a popular statement in sports journalism is to say “sources say” before anything you report. Most never actually reveal who their source was when they say this, but it at least buys them time to verify if what they reporter is completely true or just another