Ethics

As a communications student, I plan to enter a profession related to Digital Multimedia Production (DMP) field. One area I am interested in is sports broadcasting but more specifically in editing. Whether it is editing photos or video footage there are many ethical scenarios that a professional may encounter. I worked at NBC Sports as part of my professional internship. I learned a lot from this experience and received lots of advice from professionals working in the NBC Sports facility. One advice that stood out to me was that as a sports editor, you should not let the way you feel about a team interfere with your work. One ethical scenario an editor could encounter is “photo or footage manipulation”. When doing this you are misrepresenting the truth of what really happened. One way of manipulating an image can be to digitally alter the image so that it may represent something different than what was originally taken. I was told that it is ok to be a fan, but for work purposes an editor should not manipulate an image to benefit his/her favorite team or misrepresent a team they don’t like. In sports, any kind of manipulation to the media can be offensive to the team, their managers, family and fans.

Sports editors have to present game producers with highlight reels and footages of previous games. Another ethical scenario an editor may encounter could be the acceptance of free gifts or tickets to sporting events in exchange of a highlight reel that may boost one team over another. A highlight reel that shows one team doing great/outstanding plays while the other does regular plays is misleading. This may be done to boost one team over the other or to showoff the home team. Either way it is still not a true representation of the team.

Sports Illustrated is one of the most recognized sports magazines. The magazine is read by its subscribers and by people who buy individual issues each week. In November 2012, Sports Illustrated published a photograph of the Baylor Bears football teal celebrating after their victory over the Kansas State Wildcats. But something was different in the image; it showed the Baylor football players wearing green jerseys when they actually wore black ones in this game. This is an example of photo manipulation. After the mistake was revealed, a VP at Sports Illustrated said the magazine would run a correction the following week. He also said that the photo manipulation was a production error that was misleading.

Original Photo

Manipulated Photo

You may read about this story and see the images here:                    http://petapixel.com/2012/11/29/sports-illustrated-magazine-accused-of-manipulating-college-football-photo/

When I was a teenager I was a member of the Pentecostal church. There I learned about doing the right thing and about making choices in life that present the truth in any situation. Even though I am not a member of any church group today, I still have my beliefs. I also remember what I’ve learned and put it into practice in many aspects of my life. My parents also played a role in teaching me about what is considered the right thing to do. I’d say that my religious background and my parent’s teachings are the tools I can draw on to help me in ethical decision-making. 

From the course readings I’ve learned various ways to define the word ethics. From the Elliot reading I learned about case studies and how they are used for ethical discussions. This practice may improve the discussants’ critical decision-making abilities. Elliot mentions that in an ethics discussion the best opinion is the one that best addresses the morally relevant factors of the case. The reading also included a guideline made up of 5 questions. Elliot mentions that these questions may be used as a map for ethical discussions. The guideline questions are a good tool to follow for ethical decision-making.

From the Plaisance Chapter 2 reading I learned that ethics deals with finding the solution that may be best or close to best, among other options that are less fulfilling. That the focus of ethics remains on how we reach that decision rather than the final decision itself. That ethics it is about the discussion and debate process from which the final decision is reached. It is also about how we manage the gray areas or areas that are unclear or not as simple, therefore require us to think more deeply about our values before reaching a decision. Plaisance also offers various codes of ethics for journalist, marketers, and public relations professionals among others. As for Media Ethics in cyberspace, Plaisance offers the Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics. Among the commandments there was one that really stood out to me, commandment number 8:

•  Thou shalt not appropriate other people’s intellectual output.

The reason this one stood out to me is because in the technological world we live in today, it is very easy to copy other people’s work. Not many people invest time on doing real research when there are tools in the Internet that help us reach answers to questions faster. Other people’s work is revealed through search engines by simply typing in certain key words. I believe that the Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics should not only be applied to computers but also to all devices used today to access the Internet, such as cell phones, tablets, and iPads among others. But Plaisance explains that even though we live in a high-tech world, that shouldn’t change our basic standards ethically informed communication.

Some topics I’d like to see addressed in class are: the acceptance of gifts at work, when is it appropriate to use an anonymous source and is it correct to use a sports celebrity or well-known person’s reference to obtain a sports media related job.