Is the News Media ethical in its reporting?

Is the News Media ethical in its reporting?

History and Overview

The field of News Media has seen a revolution over the years. The news media are rapidly evolving into a “mixed media'. The conventional practices of newspapers and broadcast stations are rapidly combining with the new types of media, among which the most prominent is on-line news media. These developments in the field of News Media have been triggered by various technological and economic alterations and innovations. These developments have given a rise to various trends, which has challenged the concept of ethical reporting in media, especially in the field of journalism.

The world first saw the invention of television and cable. Television was closely followed by the satellite. The development of satellite saw a revolution in the news media as the online news took over the conventional forms of media such as newspaper. In the modern world, in which we live in, we see billions of blogs, websites, podcasts and web broadcasts. These new developments and innovation in the new media, has seen them take over, by large the conventional media forms.

The proliferation to today's news media has virtually no end, with the online news media acting as a prominent catalyst in the media market. The developments, therefore mean that there are three ethical implications (Hulteng, 1985). There has been an increase in the competition between the News media firms. The increase in competition is affecting the quality of new reports, which is shown by them to the general public, which leads to multiple misunderstandings and complexities. As a result, it can be seen that the general public has raised voices against the issues related to the transparency of the news reports. The last important implication is that it can be seen that the understanding of copyright has been ceased to suffice over the entire globe.

According to Ward ethics can be defined as showcasing and practicing responsible conduct and interacting fairly in human interactions, according to the particular principles. According to Ward, ethics is about practical judgments and using principles to resolve issues and decide to regard different issues. Summarizing what Ward believes ethics is it is various practical and theoretical decisions which are made by different journalists in different scenarios (Ward, 2008). According to McNair, journalism is a truthful discourse. In order to reap the fruits from this field, it is important that the information is gathered ethically (McNair, 1998). Journalists have an ethical responsibility towards giving the audience true news.

Journalism (or news media) is taught in various schools and university all around the world, which has resulted in the making of sound ethics related to journalism. It is necessary that journalist and other news media professionals do their job properly in order to portray truthful information to the audience. In case of any misleading information, it can lead to many issues in the public. News media can manipulate news in various forms. It is very important to understand that news ...