A Journalistic Dilemma

The article: A hoax, a suicide… a journalistic dilemma, is about a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide after receiving cruel messages online. She was cyber-bullied by Josh, a (fake) boy, created by her neighbors. Pokin, a journalist for the Journal wrote the story but didn’t reveal the neighbor’s names, this caused an outrage and more, amongst readers.

In Chapter 10 of our book, Gordon begins his point of view by expressing that: “Beyond the broad right to be let alone, privacy is an important concept for anyone who respects the dignity and autonomy of fellow human beings.” If we go back to the Plaisance reading, ethics is seen as “dealing with finding the best or most right solution among many less-than-satisfying options.” Keeping in mind that ethics is about the deliberation, the thought process rather than the final decision, we can consider that Pokin, his editor and lawyer made an ethical decision. They considered that there were no arrests, no charges filed, no civil suit, a juvenile involved and that there was no clarity on who was sending the messages before publishing the story. They accounted the facts that they knew.

If we take into consideration Kant’s Categorical Imperative and focus on the action, then we can say that by maintaining the neighbor’s privacy, Pokin and the Journal were protecting the neighbor’s identity to prevent them from being attacked. Pokin didn’t take advantage of the information he’d obtained, just to “sell” a story or to make the Journal more popular by revealing the neighbors to the community. With his action, Pokin respected the neighbor’s privacy, since no charges were officially charged. Even though his material didn’t satisfy the public’s curiosity, it’s content was still true. As a journalist he delivered a story about a girl and the fact that she committed suicide. Omitting the neighbor’s names does not make the story false. Looking at “A Code of Ethics for Journalists from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics” (found in the Plaisance reading), I find that one of the key directives mentions: “Minimize harm”. To minimize harm means that ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect. So Pokin’s actions minimized harm and respected the neighbor’s privacy, I believe that Pokin and the Journal were ethically justified.

According to the article, by the time the neighbors were identified some false information had been added and by that time the usual protections about naming names had been trampled. Because the story was going fast and far, there was a misrepresentation of the truth. By identifying the neighbor, the Post was out to correct the false information and inform their audience.

I’d like to take a moment and think about Ross’s Pluralistic Values and his idea that moral decision-making sometimes requires us to reflect upon the past and act out of a sense of duty rather than focus on the outcome.

Ross’s Duties:

1. Fidelity                    3. Gratitude                 5. Justice                     7. Non-Maleficence

2. Reparation               4. Beneficence             6. Self-Improvement

According to Ross, in any given situation, any number of these duties can exist and moral dilemmas arise when these duties come into conflict with one another. At that point the person would have to decide which obligation has more weight. In this case, the Post decided to identify the neighbors who were “cyber bullies”, in reparation to the previous story from the Journal. By the time the Post identified the neighbors, some false information had been added to the story. Reparation may be the way to tell the story right and give the audience the complete information that they seek.

Of the two ethical justifications discussed, I find the first one more compelling. The reason is because the thought process was more extensive. The situation was analyzed, versus just publishing a story for the full benefit (or profit) of the paper. It was more carefully crafted (skillfully written as described in the article) even though it caused outrage.

By message or texts, these words hurt as much as when said in person

Any type of bullying is wrong. A bully takes advantage of others and believes the other person is weaker than them and will not fight back. Victims of bullies usually become depressed and have low self-esteem. When this bullying takes place online, it is more difficult to track the culprit, because as seen in this case (article), the culprits were hiding behind a false profile. The outcome of this case was very tragic. I believe that the people (victim’s neighbors) responsible for the bullying never really knew the extent of the damage they would cause, but were brave enough to confess their part in the story.

Parents should talk to their kids about cyber bullies.
By knowing what is going, parents can help their kids.

 The story about a 13-year-old girl, victim of cyber bullying was published but the neighbors, who were the bullies, were not identified. For this case I’d like to consider Mill’s utility principle and focus on the outcome. Pokin knew the neighbors admitted their part in the tragedy. Even though they were not being charged for any crime, they (as some would say) contributed to a death with their bullying. In this case the outcome and outrage of the audience, caused by the article, is what impresses me the most. If I was a journalist in this case I would have considered the SPJ code: Act Independently. Which states that journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know. But in this case, the right to know what exactly? I believe that the public had the right to know that the neighbors had admitted to sending cruel and taunting messages to the victim. Focusing on the outcome, since the neighbors were not identified, the readers were outraged. That outcome would’ve been different if the neighbors had been identified. Pokin’s reputation wouldn’t have suffered as much as it did. In this case, it is not about getting to the conclusion that the neighbor’s caused the death, but allowing the public know who was behind the bullying.

Giving away our information

When we are online all our moves are being tracked as a personal profile is being created for us. Recent searches on Google are the most common, you start typing and what you need is already spelled out for you. Convenient? Maybe. The fact that anything we write on our computer, laptop and or smart phone is being tracked may be cause for alarm. Many people know this and are cautious, while others just choose to ignore it and are less careful of what information they disclose while they are online. What many people do not suspect is that just as we are being tracked for our online research habits, stores may also track our shopping habits. Especially when we pay for our purchases with a debit card or use a store rewards cards because then the store has a record or a profile of our buying habits (record of what we usually buy).

I believe this kind of data mining or research without consent is cause for ethical concern. First, this type of research is being done without my consent. It only benefits the store or merchant doing the research. Even though I may receive a discount coupon for future purchases and it may seem like a benefit to me as a consumer/customer, it really does not benefit me as a person. It is true that no one is being hurt or physically harmed by this data mining, but it still feels like an invasion of privacy.

This type of targeted marketing becomes a cause for ethical concern when it reaches a point where the merchant is not only using the information you provide him with, but also generates a deeper research of our buying patterns to create a profile. According to the article: “How Target Figured out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did”, we learn that Target assigns every customer a guest ID number tied to their credit card, name, or email address that becomes a bucket or a file that stores a history of everything they’ve bought and any demographic information Target has collected from them or bought from other sources. All of this is done without the customer’s consent or knowledge. I believe that receiving coupons that are relevant to our lifestyle is very convenient, but I also believe that the person receiving the coupons should have the right to sign up for them not just have them randomly show up at their house on a mailer from the store. One main issue or concern may be when this guest ID information makes it way to the wrong person and the information is used for something other than marketing. If we consider Kant’s Categorical Imperative and focus on the action, we may consider this target marketing as an invasion of privacy. The act of investigating buying patterns goes beyond traditional methods of marketing. Another reason it is invasion of privacy is because they collect more information about the customer, than the customer is aware of.

Target obtains a "pregnancy prediction score" based on your purchases,
then sends you specific coupons based on how far along you are.

In the case of the angry father who went to Target to complaint about his daughter receiving a mailer targeted towards a “mother-to-be”, we can see how targeted marketing may be cause for anger. The ethical obligation of the Target manager towards the angry customer was to apologize and that is exactly what he did. When the manager went the extra mile and called the customer to apologize again, he found out that Target was right and that the customer’s daughter really was pregnant. But was it up to Target to make this information public and available by sending the mailer with coupons? It wasn’t the manager directly who sent the mailer and in this case he did what he thought was right and apologized.


As they said towards the end of the article, people tend to feel uncomfortable or “creeped out” that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance. I believe that by sending mailers with various coupons but including the maternity friendly ones, the company is still targeting that specific person and that is still unethical, when it is not solicited. On the other hand if we consider Mill’s Utility Principle and focus on the outcome, we may see that the two parties involved have an advantage or “win” in this scenario. Target wins because the pregnant women use the coupons (when they are in a mixed mailer) and they have a profit because of it. The women who use the coupons don’t feel like they are being spied on, they feel comfortable using the coupons and they save money. And even though it may be unsolicited by using the coupons the women do not seem to be bothered by the coupons.

If we look at the code of ethics for Public Relations Professionals, under Expertise it says: “We acquire and responsibly use specialized knowledge and experience.” To me, this means that the PR professional will use their knowledge and experience for positive purposes or the good of the company that he/she represents. The use of knowledge and technology to create a client ID or profile may seem to go against this statement because it is not a responsible way to obtain the information. The responsible way would be to obtain the information and distribute the coupons with customer consent. And this takes us me to the ethical perspective of Communitarianism. If we consider the terms “fairness for all”, “same starting point” and “equal playing fields”, then we can say that targeted marketing goes against all those terms. 

According to the article, in their research they noticed that women on the baby registry were buying larger quantities of lotion around their second trimester, so Target could send coupons timed to very specific stages of their pregnancy, according to their pregnancy prediction scores achieved by the data collected from their purchases. Lets say that I am a woman who has very dry skin and I need body lotion and go to Target to buy it, I will pay regular price versus the pregnant woman who received a coupon in the mail. There is no fairness since I will not be saving any money on my purchase. Target marketing does not provide an equal playing field for all customers.

If I were to change this concept of targeted marketing I would consider Bok’s ethical decision-making and ask myself the three questions:

1.     How do I feel about these actions? I feel like they are unfair.  And invasion of privacy since I do not want my information used for research.

2.     Is there another professionally acceptable way to achieve the same goal that will not raise ethical issue? The best way would be to collect the data with the customers’ consent and let them know about the research and that the coupons will be tied to their buying habits especially for them. Otherwise just send all customers who don’t consent of the research the same ad.

3.     How will others respond to the proposed act? Clients will feel like they are in control versus feeling like they are being spied on.

In the end it is the customer who should decide what information he/she wants the company to use and where they make their purchases. Everyone should decide when it is safe to use cash, debit or credit card, keeping in mind that bank/account information will be obtain from the retailer. 

With so many cards to choose from today,
it is easy for our information to be "everywhere".

Store specific cards make it easier for the retailer to obtain
even more information about us and our shopping habits.