News-Director As Gatekeeper

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Final Case Analysis: News Director as Gatekeeper Being a journalist comes with many role- related responsibilities and while performing them, journalists will often be faced with a wide variety of ethical issues that will require them to exercise their best judgment while upholding the five principles of journalism, and abiding by the code of ethics. In the case presented on pages 47-48 of Online Journalism Ethics by Friend and Singer, news director Ashley Stephens, faced a big ethical issue when it came to deciding whether to publish the graphic and disturbing video of two Red Cross workers being killed by kidnappers in Iraq, or not. Stephens’ news network prides itself in being the news source people go to when it comes to anything dealing …show more content…

Journalists must act with sensitivity and try to avoid causing harm by any means possible, for that reason, when Journalists are dealing with sensitive topics such as rape, often times they will leave out the names of the victims to avoid causing harm to the families and the victims. In this instance, it would be ethically permitted for Stephens to watch the video and then release an article describing the event as it happened, and include the names of the victims, but it would not be ideal. An ethically ideal action for her to take is to look for where the video came from, do further investigation of the event, and then write an article stating what occurred, without going into graphic details, and focusing the story not on how the men were killed, or the fact that they were killed, but rather the motive behind the Al Qaeda members, and how it affects the country. By doing so, Stephens would be taking necessary action to avoid causing unjustified harm to the victim’s family, the citizens, and she would be respecting the deceased. This is what Friend and Singer would call gatekeeping. “The gatekeeping role gives the journalist the ability to construct public knowledge in a particular way and ascribe particular importance to it –or not” (Friend and Singer 55); ideally, Stephens should evaluate the purpose for why the audience would need to see the video, and write about that as the focus. Stephens would be fulling her role-related responsibility by stating the truth and delivering the news, and acting in an ethical manner by protecting the people as

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