Chapter 10

 Ethics –  The study of guidelines that help people determine right from wrong in their voluntary conduct  The Print Era - Early American ethical views ▪ Often depended on political orientation. ▪ Advancement of one’s political point of view was often more important than a search for the truth. ▪ Objectivity ▪ Describing something based on factual elements rather than the feelings of the one describing it (subjectivity) as a journalistic standard.

 The Development of the Philosophy of Free Speech  Freedom to protest was important to the founders U.S. colonies ▪ After breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church  Protestants chaffed under England’s licensing laws ▪ Not allowed to express religious views for more than a 100 years.

 Does the freedom of speech allow  Us to say whatever we like?  Whenever we like?  Are there any exceptions to freedom of speech  If so what are they?  What type of speech is NOT protected  By the 1 st amendment  Do you think it should be protected  Why/Why not

 The 1 st amendment of the constitution  Allows the U.S. press & media to be among ▪ The freest in the world  What are the 5 clauses of the 1 st amendment  Despite freedoms through 1 st amendment  There are some limitations

 The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteed citizens of the new country five essential and related freedoms: ▪ Religion ▪ Speech ▪ Press ▪ Assembly ▪ Petition  The First Amendment ignited a sometimes bitter debate about free speech that continues to this day.

 Conflicting Loyalties  There is a wide range of conflicting loyalties that influence the ethical decisions of media practitioners. ▪ Duty to personal conscience. ▪ Duty to one’s organization or firm. ▪ Duty to one’s profession or art. ▪ Duty to society.  Which of these do you think is most important for a Journalist?  Would it be the same for everyone else ▪ Why/Why Not

 Libel  A false statement about a living person that ▪ Does damage to persons reputation  Four most common examples of libel ▪ False charge of a crime ▪ Suggest that a woman is unchaste ▪ Charge that someone has/had horrible disease ▪ Discredit someone in their profession ▪ Calling a doctor a “Quack” ▪ Calling a lawyer an “Ambulance Chaser”

 Whether through carelessness or malice  Libelous statements can result in  3 possible outcomes ▪ General damages ▪ Granted for injury to reputation ▪ Special damages ▪ Monetary loss, erosion of business, loss of job, etc ▪ Punitive damages ▪ Usually awarded if person can prove  Reckless disregard or malicious intent to harm  By writer or publisher

 Avoiding Libel ▪ Check & double check your facts ▪ Make sure you can trust your notes  If libel slips through ▪ Best defenses have been ▪ Truth, fair comment, opinion ▪ If public figure ▪ Malice has to be proven to charge libel

 Protection of Rights  Personal Rights: ▪ An individual’s right to be left alone, especially in one’s home, ▪ established through common law. ▪ Privacy law is always changing with the times. ▪ After September 11th attacks, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act ▪ Act gives govt expanded rights to access personal and private communications and examine books Americans buy or check out of the library.

 Invasion of privacy  4 parts to this ▪ Casting someone in a false light ▪ Embellishing, fictionalizing or distorting a factual statement ▪ Revealing intimate details of someone’s life ▪ Even with proof, this is questionable due to the nature of privacy

 Invasion of privacy ▪ Misappropriate someone’s name or likeness ▪ Using a persons name or photograph in an advertisement ▪ Without their permission  Can also apply to recently passed celebrities ▪ Intruding physically into someone’s private life ▪ Unauthorized wiretaps ▪ Trespassing on private property to gather info ▪ Committing fraud while gathering info ▪ Getting interviews under false pretenses

 Intellectual Property Rights  Copyright law grants the author right to make and distribute copies of that work for a specified period. ▪ First-sale doctrine ▪ Allows purchasers of copies of a copyrighted work to resell it or rent it out. ▪ Copyright does not protect ideas, ▪ Only expression of ideas, such as a written works, screenplay, novel.

▪ The copyright sign does not have to appear in a work for it to be protected. ▪ Fair use allows copying of a work for noncommercial use as long as it does not exploit the copyright holder. ▪ Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 ▪ Made it a crime to break through any technology intended to secure digital copies of software, literary works, videos, and music.

 Copyright Protection  For article writers ▪ Facts in article are not copyrighted ▪ Only the words THEY used to describe those facts ▪ Copyright is assigned to unpublished material ▪ As soon as it’s written

 Editors may want to buy certain rights  All rights ▪ You give up the right to use material in same form later ▪ You can’t sell it to anyone else for a reprint  First serial rights ▪ Magazine or newspaper has the right to run your article first  Second serial rights ▪ Refers to reprint rights after first publication elsewhere  Simultaneous rights ▪ When multiple publications with different audience ▪ Can run it at the same time – doesn’t happen often

 Copyright infringement  Violating these exclusive rights of copyright holders ▪ Reproduction of copyrighted work ▪ Preparation of derivative work ▪ Based on copyrighted material ▪ Selling, renting or lending copies ▪ Performing the work in public ▪ Displaying the work in public  Essentially ▪ You can’t take someone else’s work & pass it off as yours

 So how much of someone's work can I use/reference without getting sued  “Fair Use” ▪ Doctrine that allows for using someone else’s work ▪ Within reason ▪ 200 words from a novel – OK ▪ 200 words from a 300 word article – Not OK

 Ethical guidelines  Truth and accuracy  Fairness  Doctoring Quotes

 Ethical guidelines  On & off the record  Made-up Names & Places  Confidential Sources

 Ethical guidelines  Editorial Bias  Pretense and deception  Conflicts of interest

 Ethical guidelines  Multiple submissions  Multiple versions  Making ethical decisions

 Clear and Present Danger doctrine  Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the in 1919  “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that the United States Congress has a right to prevent.”

 In 1957, the Supreme Court decreed that a work could be declared obscene ▪ If, according to the perceptions of the average person applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appealed to the prurient (lustfully depraved) interest of the consumer. ▪ This definition tended to confuse rather than clarify.