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Doing Ethics in Media

The second edition of Doing Ethics in Media continues its mission of providing an accessible but comprehensive
introduction to media ethics, with a grounding in moral philosophy, to help students think clearly and
systematically about dilemmas in the rapidly changing media environment.
Each chapter highlights specific considerations, cases, and practical applications for the fields of
journalism, advertising, digital media, entertainment, public relations, and social media. Six fundamental
decision-making questions—the “5Ws and H” around which the book is organized—provide a path
for students to articulate the issues, understand applicable law and ethics codes, consider the needs of
stakeholders, work through conflicting values, integrate philosophic principles, and pose a “test
of publicity.” Students are challenged to be active ethical thinkers through the authors’ reader-friendly
style and use of critical early-career examples. While most people will change careers several times during
their lives, all of us are life-long media consumers, and Doing Ethics in Media prepares readers for that task.
Doing Ethics in Media is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students studying media ethics in mass
media, journalism, and media studies. It also serves students in rhetoric, popular culture, communication
studies, and interdisciplinary social sciences.
The book’s companion website—doingethicsin.media, or www.doingmediaethics.com—provides
continuously updated real-world media ethics examples and collections of essays from experts and students. The
site also hosts ancillary materials for students and for instructors, including a test bank and instructor’s manual.

Chris Roberts is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at the
University of Alabama, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He started his media career
before he could drive, working for newspapers and radio stations in his hometown before becoming a
full-time newspaper reporter and editor at papers in Birmingham, AL, and Columbia, SC. He earned his
doctorate at the University of South Carolina before joining the University of Alabama faculty. He served
on the Society of Professional Journalists ethics committee during its 2014 revision of its code of ethics.

Jay Black is Poynter Jamison Chair in Media Ethics, Emeritus, at the University of South Florida, St.
Petersburg. He is founding co-editor of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics and has authored or edited ten
volumes, including books on media ethics and five editions of an introductory mass media textbook. He
was co-winner of the first Freedom Forum Journalism Teacher of the Year Award in 1997. His doctorate
in Journalism was earned at the University of Missouri; other degrees were from Miami (Ohio) University
and Ohio University. He served on the Society of Professional Journalists ethics committee during its 1996
revision of its code of ethics.

DoingEthicsIn.Media | Follow us on Twitter @DoingEthics

DoingMediaEthics.com
Doing Ethics in Media
Theories and Practical Applications

Second Edition

Chris Roberts
Jay Black
Second edition published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2022 Taylor & Francis
The right of Chris Roberts and Jay Black to be identified as authors of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Roberts, Chris, 1965- author. | Black, Jay, author.
Title: Doing ethics in media : theories and practical applications / Chris
Roberts, Jay Black.
Description: 2nd edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021023639 (print) | LCCN 2021023640 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138041080 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138041110 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781315174631 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Journalistic ethics—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc. |
Journalistic ethics—United States—Case studies—Handbooks,
manuals, etc. | Mass media—Moral and ethical aspects—United
States—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Mass media—Moral and ethical
aspects—Case studies—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Classification: LCC PN4888.E8 B535 2022 (print) | LCC PN4888.E8 (ebook) |
DDC 174/.907—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023639
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023640

ISBN: 978-1-138-04108-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-04111-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-17463-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781315174631
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Cover design by Rob Barge, Hardware Graphics
Indexing by James Roberts
Access the companion website:
www.doingmediaethics.com
To Melissa and James, who still one day might want to read the pages
that follow. Or they may say what Pee Wee told Dottie at the end of his
Big Adventure: “I don’t have to see it. . . . I lived it.”
—Chris Roberts

To Leslie, Laura, and Stephanie, who do ethics in the real world.

—Jay Black
Contents

List of Case Studiesix

Welcome to the Second Editionxii
About the Authorsxiv

Introduction: Thinking About Doing Ethics,

and the “5Ws and H” List1

The First Question: What’s Your Problem?21

1 Ethics and Moral Reasoning 23

The Second Question: Why Not Follow the Rules?49

2 Codes of Ethics and Justification Models 51

3 Media Traditions and the Paradox of Professionalism 78

The Third Question: Who Wins, Who Loses?117

4 Moral Development and the Expansion of Empathy 119

5 Loyalty 148
6 Diversity 165

The Fourth Question: What’s It Worth?197

7 Personal and Professional Values 199

8 Truth and Deception 229
9 Persuasion and Propaganda 268
10 Privacy and Public Life 302
viii Contents
The Fifth Question: What Do Philosophers Say?327

11 Consequentialism and Utility 329

12 Deontology and Moral Rules 356
13 Virtue, Justice, and Care 383

The Sixth Question: How’s Your Decision Going to Look?405

14 Accountability, Transparency, and Credibility 407

Glossary438
References450
Permissions478
Index480
Case Studies

Journalism
1.1 Think About Your Sources 47
2.1 The Club and Code 72
3.1 Can You Show Readers What the Fuss Is About? 110
4.1 Publish or Not—Changing Stages, Changing Sides? 142
5.1 The Harsh Out-of-Town Story 159
6.1 Covering a Candidate? 191
7.1 Show the Faces? 223
8.1 How Much Deception Do You Need to Nail the Story? 262
9.1 Taking Sides During Battle 296
10.1 Publish the Name or Not? 320
11.A The Temptation to Deceive 330
11.B Marketing Your Movie 333
11.1 How (and Whether) to Cover a Prank 348
12.1 How (and Whether) to Cover a Prank 377
14.1 Answering a “Fake News” Claim 432

Digital Media
1.A Take the Money—and Keep Your Self-Respect? 25
1.2 You Ate the Duck Soup 47
2.2 Make a Link—or Not? 73
3.2 When in Sylvania, Do You Do as the Sylvanians? 111
4.2 Paying to Reveal a Product 143
5.2 Is the Nominee Gay? 160
6.2 Do You Accept an Advertiser? 192
7.2 Do You Break the Wall? 224
8.2 Are You Using, or Being Used by, a Sock Puppet? 263
9.2 To Link, or Not to Link? 297
10.2 Choosing Among Privacy, Loyalty, and the Truth 321
11.2 Do You Take the Ads? 350
12.2 Do You Take the Ads? 378
14.2 You May Have Been Wrong 433
x List of Case Studies

Public Relations
1.B A Dilemma About Loyalty and Promise Keeping 26
1.3 The New Client With a Past 47
2.3 The Truth of “Left to Pursue Other Interests” 74
3.3 Pay for Play in Another Country? 112
4.3 A Stealthy Way to Cause a Scoop 144
5.3 Wrestling With Your Conscience and a Friend Bound to Fail 161
6.3 Do We Pit Groups Against Each Other? 193
7.3 Once the Story is Published. . . 225
8.3 When the Boss Lies to You 264
9.3 Responding to a Smelly Crisis 298
10.3 “Hiding” Behind a Fuzzy Law? 322
11.3 “The Big Weekend” 351
12.3 “The Big Weekend” 379
14.3 What, If Anything, Do You Say About a Client? 434

Advertising
1.4 It Keeps Going and Going, or Not 48
2.4 Do You Chant? 75
3.4 Selling Tobacco Abroad 113
4.4 Drop the Pitchman? 145
5.4 Do You Change Clients? 162
6.4 Do You Build an Issue-Focused Campaign? 194
7.4 The Prince and the Plant Protein 226
8.4 A Candidate’s Ads 265
9.4 Placing Ads in Troublesome Places 299
10.4 Mining the Data 323
11.4 The Nathan Freedonia Ad 353
14.4 The Not-so-Accidental Tourist 435

Entertainment
1.5 The New Production Job 48
2.5 So What’s Gratuitous Violence? 76
3.5 An International Pitch 114
4.5 Put Adolescents on a Reality Show? 146
5.5 Misdirection for Fun and Profit 163
6.5 The Inclusion Rider 195
7.5 This Actor May Not be Working Out 227
8.5 Based on a True Story 266
9.5 To Screen, or Not to Screen 300
10.5 Which Syndicated Shows to Buy? 324
11.B Marketing Your Movie 333
11.5 The VIM Kids 354
14.5 This Actor May Have Acted Out Improperly 436
 List of Case Studies xi

Social Media
1.6 Off by Default 48
2.6 Handling a Troll, Part 1 77
3.6 Making a Bot 115
4.6 Call Attention to a Rival’s Mistake? 147
5.6 Do You Tell What You Know? 164
6.6 Can You Reinvent Yourself Online? 196
7.6 Show the Scofflaws? 228
8.6 Updating Your Followers Live 267
9.6 Do You Respond? 301
10.6 Explaining Your Privacy Statement 326
11.6 Handling a Troll, Part 2 355
14.6 How to Follow the Rules 437
Welcome to the Second Edition

You are Reading words taken from the wisdom of the ages, written by two guys with
more than eight decades of combined experience in ethical theory and practical media
experience. And you are reading the second effort at Doing Ethics in Media: Theories and
Practical Applications, which we hope brings new ideas to the changing nature of media—but
in the context of millennia of moral philosophy that have steered millions of people to do
ethics in their own corners of the world.
This book was decades in the making. Jay Black was turned on to media ethics in the
1970s by fellow grad student Ralph Barney and mentor John Merrill at the University of
Missouri. In the early 1980s, he fell under the spell of Clifford Christians, Lou Hodges,
Deni Elliott, and Ed Lambeth at a week-long workshop on teaching the subject. With their
encouragement, and nudging from numerous colleagues at AEJ (now AEJMC), he and
Dr. Barney launched the Journal of Mass Media Ethics in 1984. (It’s now the Journal of Media
Ethics.) Untold thousands of pages of manuscripts and a quarter century later, despite the
assistance of an incredibly dedicated editorial board, he was happy to turn that chapter of his
life over to friend and colleague Lee Wilkins, who has improved the journal. In the interim,
he was inspired by team-teacher Frank Deaver at the University of Alabama, Bob Steele
and his colleagues at the Poynter Institute, hundreds of colleagues in the Society for Profes-
sional Journalists, and dozens of really bright participants in the “Colloquium 2000” series
on media ethics research. He is now fully retired and active in his community, yet inspired
by the zeal and quality of work coming from the emerging generation of media ethicists,
some of whom have been his students. Chris Roberts is atop the list, joined by Susan Keith,
Patrick Plaisance, Susan Keith, current Journal of Media Ethics editor Patrick Plaisance, Rick
Kenney, Lee Anne Peck, Wendy Wyatt, Sandra Borden, Aaron Quinn, and Kevin Stoker.
With Jay’s retirement, Chris Roberts became responsible for the second edition and main-
taining the conversations at www.doingmediaethics.com and @DoingEthics on Twitter.
He remains grateful to Jay Black for more than three decades—first as a graduate student
and research assistant, for years as a JMME board member, now as a yokefellow on this pro-
ject, and always as a friend. That friendship shaped Chris’ decisions while doing media as
ethically as possible for decades as a journalist, as did the influence of scores of upright jour-
nalists and advertising/public relations practitioners. Deserving of special mention at The
Birmingham News are Greg Garrison and the late Randy Henderson. At The State newspaper
in Columbia, S.C., editors Mark Lett, Steve Brook, Scott Johnson, and Sara Svedberg made
it possible for Chris to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina while working
at the paper. He is grateful to faculty who shepherded him as a doctoral student and then
on the USC faculty, especially Augie Grant. Now, tenured back home in Alabama, he is
thankful for his encouraging colleagues. He also is heartened by the thousands of students at
 Welcome to the Second Edition xiii
Alabama and elsewhere who have learned from this book, published on the book’s website,
learned the “5Ws and H” approach to making decisions, and made suggestions to make it
better.
The authors want to thank those who reviewed and nurtured the book manuscript and
helped it change from a bunch of interesting but somewhat disconnected ideas into a com-
prehensive and original approach to the subject matter. We especially acknowledge the
efforts of Lois Boynton of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Others (who
were willing to be identified) deserving thanks are Deni Elliott of the University of South
Florida St. Petersburg, Pat Gehrke of the University of South Carolina, Walt Jaehnig, Susan
Keith of Rutgers, Paul Lester, Ian Richard of the University of South Australia, Zaneta
Trajkoska, and Herman Wasserman. Their efforts, and the scholarly efforts of several others
who preferred to remain anonymous, are deeply appreciated . . . even the occasional caustic
criticisms.

Updates for the Second Edition

What began as Jay’s brainchild became a collaborative effort. He developed the “5Ws and
H” questions that frame this textbook, and he wrote all but Chapter 13 in the first edition.
Chris wrote all but one case study, conceptualized the book’s “5Ws and H” framework, built
the graphics, shepherded it through the production process, and is primarily responsible for
the online material.
The second edition has brought multiple changes, including:

 A new chapter for this edition, on diversity. We are grateful to Eric Deggans, now at
National Public Radio, for his insights in the first edition. For the new chapter, thanks go
to the support and critical eyes of University of Alabama colleagues Kristen Warner, George
Daniels, and Damion Waymer, and a graduate class that read drafts.
 Considerations of social media. In addition to the first edition’s look at “new media” (now
called “digital media” to consider blogging and hybrid forms of journalism and persuasion),
we have added ethical theories and practical applications to work that media practitioners
do on social media.
 Expanded thinking about the nature of ethics and media. Special thanks to Alabama col-
leagues Tom Arenberg and Mark Mayfield, and longtime friend and journalism co-worker
Ken Knelly, among others, for their insights while teaching through the book.
 Updating and adding additional case studies in the book and online. Almost all of the 76
cases begin with “You are . . .” as a way to help you consider what you would do in a situ-
ation instead of critiquing someone else’s decision. We removed much of the “Thinking It
Through” after the cases (and put it elsewhere) to remove some of the “hints” that might
give shortcuts to students.
 A revision of the “5Ws and H” questions, to “What do philosophers say?” We found
original formulation led some students to restate loyalties, instead of talk about philosophies,
when they moved to the fifth question.
 Tying some of the theories and practical applications to relevant media theories. (Thanks,
Purdue University’s Jen Hoewe.)
 More photos, illustrations, boxes, and pull-out quotes. Thanks to longtime friend Rob
Barge for the clever cover image, Abby Broussard for the icons and many of the inside
graphics, and quotes collected by Georgia Gallagher and Sara Kimball Stephenson.
 Adding the glossary to the print edition. Thanks to Jena Hippensteel Henderson for her
help.
About the Authors

Chris Roberts is an associate professor in the Depart-

ment of Journalism and Creative Media at the University
of Alabama, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s
degrees (and was Jay Black’s assistant with the Journal of
Mass Media Ethics in the late 1980s). He started his media
career before he could drive, working for newspapers
and radio stations in his hometown before becoming a
full-time newspaper reporter and editor at papers in Bir-
mingham, AL, and Columbia, SC. He earned his doc-
torate at the University of South Carolina before joining
the University of Alabama faculty. He teaches everything
from introduction to mass communication classes to
doctoral-level media ethics seminars, and has published
dozens of academic papers and book chapters. He served
on the Society of Professional Journalists ethics commit-
tee during its 2014 revision of its code of ethics.

Jay Black is Poynter Jamison Chair in Media Ethics,

Emeritus, at the University of South Florida, St. Peters-
burg. He is founding co-editor of the Journal of Mass
Media Ethics and has authored or edited ten volumes,
including books on media ethics and five editions of an
introductory mass media textbook. He was co-winner
of the first Freedom Forum Journalism Teacher of the
Year Award in 1997. His Ph.D. in Journalism was earned
at the University of Missouri; other degrees were from
Miami (Ohio) University and Ohio University. He has
worked as a reporter and copy editor, and in public rela-
tions, and he has held tenured positions at the University
of South Florida, the University of Alabama, Utah State
University, and Bowling Green State University. He has
published or presented more than 500 papers and semi-
nars, primarily in media ethics. He served on the Society
of Professional Journalists ethics committee during its
1996 revision of its code of ethics.
Introduction
Thinking About Doing Ethics,
and the “5Ws and H” List

Don’t bother reading this book—unless you:

This Introduction:
 Believe that people working in the media
business—like workers in any business—have an  Offers insight into moral ethics,
obligation to help (or, at least not hurt) the public. and moving from gut-level deci-
 Roll your eyes at people who say, “Media eth- sions to moral philosophy.
 Explains the authors’ goals for
ics? That’s a contradiction in terms.” Better than
you, this textbook, and the accom-
eye-rolling, of course, would be explaining the panying website.
differences and difficulties faced by mass media,  Provides the framework for how
and that most media workers take their ethical the book is organized.
obligations seriously.  Debuts the “5Ws and H” list
 Recognize “media” as a plural word. You know that will guide you as you make
that there is no single “media” entity, as we live in decisions.
a world with tens of thousands of news, advocacy,
and entertainment entities run by thousands of
owners, as well as billions of web sites and social media accounts. When you hear someone
say “media is,” you recognize the folly and assume the speaker is either misinformed and/or
trying to sell you something.
 See that, because media are plural, “doing ethics in media” boils down to individual peo-
ple making decisions. This includes you: As a communicator, you must make decisions and
take responsibility for what you decide and for what you do.
 Base ethical decisions on more than your gut. Moral philosophy and theory can help
you reach better (or at least more defensible) decisions.
 Are ready to work together with fellow students and instructors, because “doing ethics”
can be difficult. Besides, no one has all the answers.

For better or worse, media have power. Media help decide what society thinks about
(McCombs & Shaw, 1972)—and, sometimes, what and how to think. This means that the
hundreds of thousands of people working in traditional and newer forms of media—whether
they inform and/or persuade and/or entertain—play significant roles in contemporary life.
Moral media are a foundation for any society that expects its citizens to be informed and its
consumers to be sharp. Moral media require their practitioners to think about ethics and act
morally.
Most media practitioners take ethics seriously, even when their decisions are misunderstood
or seemingly fall short of the best outcome. As in other enterprises, media workers’ desire
to do the right thing can be complicated by pressures that include the need to make money,
forces at work in and out of the organization they represent, the power they have to make

DOI: 10.4324/9781315174631-1
2 Introduction
decisions, and the lack of time and information needed to fully work through a decision.
Practitioners who make defensible decisions know those decisions will not always be popular
in an increasingly polarized world. When faced with oft-conflicting goals of either doing what
is right or being popular, ethical media practitioners choose the high road. They “do ethics.”
Learning to do ethics is neither easy nor simple, but
making the effort will prove helpful wherever your I much prefer the sharpest
career takes you. If you plan a media career, you need criticism of a single intelligent
a systematic understanding of how to make ethical man to the thoughtless
decisions given the industry’s unique pressures. If you approval of the masses.
work outside of media, you need an understanding of —Johann Kepler (1571–1630),
how media work in order to become a more sophis- astronomer. Quoted in
ticated consumer of the media in your life, and you Whitehead (1933).
need a systematic approach to ethics that works in all
walks of life.
The book’s subtitle—Theories and Practical Applications—hints at the tension in a media
ethics class that considers both high-level thinking and the real world.
On one hand, media ethics investigates academic and abstract concepts that have long
intrigued people in and out of the media business, including economists, historians, phi-
losophers, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, and theologians. You may find their
arguments fascinating.
On the other hand, you may think they belabor points as they count angels dancing on
pinheads. You live in the real world. But when you scratch beneath the surface, you see
how the theories apply to controversial current events and wonder what you would do if
you faced those situations. Moreover, you likely have faced ethical questions that pop up
in internships and jobs in and out of student media. You recognize that media practitioners
may make the decisions on their own or within an organization, whether working at the
bottom of an organization’s food chain or serving as its leader. Your decisions may mean lit-
tle—or could affect untold numbers stakeholders, including people you’ve never met. Your
decisions may be noticed by few—or swirl beyond your control and wildest imagination
into something talked about and second-guessed worldwide.
As you blend high-level thinking with the real world, you and fellow media practitioners
will be “doing ethics” while being pushed and pulled by a variety of moral and pragmatic
concerns. One hallmark of a professional is the ability to connect classical theory with cur-
rent practice. A goal of this book is to provide insight into decision-making processes that
you may have to apply daily—often on deadline, with dollars and reputations on the line.

Moral Philosophy, Not Moralizing

“Doing ethics” starts with thinking about ethics, a branch of moral philosophy or
philosophical thinking that considers morality, moral problems, and moral judgments.
Studying ethics means being challenged to systematically apply the wisdom of the ages.
When you thoughtfully use these theories of moral philosophy to resolve real-world
moral dilemmas, you engage in applied, practical ethics. Being thoughtfully consistent
when making ethical decisions is the goal—being consistent in moral decisions over
time, from case to case, from rule to rule, from person to person. The insights for one
situation have broad, general application to other dilemmas on other days. They help
us learn to think for ourselves and to make the tough calls—to reach moral autonomy,
even in workplaces that may devalue independent decision making. When we get it
right, we are “doing ethics.”
 Introduction 3
Alas, much of what passes for “doing ethics” is based on precious little systematic moral
philosophy. Instead, it is moralizing—narrowly pragmatic decisions based on gut reaction,
expedience, opinions, mindlessly following the top-down imposition of a boss’s or culture’s
dogmatic values, the need to follow the money, and inconsistent invocation of sometimes-
arbitrary rules. In these cases, the variables that go into one decision may not be included
when making another decision the next day. Moralizing may help us slide through one
dilemma, but it does not help us grow into thoughtful professionals. It is ad hoc moralizing,
a far cry from moral autonomy. This pattern of moralizing confuses media consumers, who
wonder how and why media practitioners make their decisions. It offers little to civic life.
The previous two paragraphs introduced the phrase
“moral autonomy,” a complex notion that deserves more The greatest influence for
explanation. It begins with the idea that we can think good comes from those quiet
for ourselves and properly determine our own ethical folks who make morals, not
standards and actions (Sensen, 2013). The goal is to moralizing, their vocation.
become an autonomous moral agent, a person who —Lawrence Reed, born
has freely chosen morals based upon their own reason 1953, retired president of
and not external authority. Most media ethicists believe the Foundation for Economic
that media practitioners must have moral autonomy to Education. Quoted in Reed
fully meet their important roles in society. Media con- (1994, p. 4).
tent that reflects the collective judgment of autono-
mous moral agents is far preferable to media content To be a fully functioning moral
determined by unquestioned adherence to tradition and agent one cannot passively
myth; or determined by rules dogmatically imposed on accept moral principles
staffers; or based on government-imposed rules for indi- handed down by fiat.
vidual practitioners. The continuing struggle between
—Michael Shermer, born
forces for autonomy and conformity can make the study
1954, founder of The Skeptics
of media ethics among the most interesting and chal- Society. Quoted in Shermer
lenging courses in your academic life. (2004, p. 3).

What This Book Can Do for You

In her Harvard doctoral dissertation, Deni Elliott (1984) critiqued various pre-professional
ethics course objectives and listed what to include in a course that stresses moral autonomy
and avoids indoctrination. She said classes should help students develop their own systems
of professional moral beliefs within the basic shared values of that profession. To do that,
students should:

 “Become aware of their own systems of professional moral belief,” including justifications
for those systems and actions.
 “Recognize that there are alternative systems of belief both among peers and from tradi-
tional ethical theory.”
 Test their own system of professional ethics by working carefully through cases.
 “Be willing to adopt new processes and standards” after critically exploring their own
systems.
 See how professional obligations define moral boundaries. Then, “isolate those moral
boundaries into a class of essential shared values.”
 Gain skills to make decisions—and reflect on those decisions.

(Elliott, 1984, pp. 154–155)

4 Introduction

Some Students’ Discovery About Media Ethics

Seniors typically take this course, and many write evaluations when the course is
completed. Here is what some of them have written (and some are edited for brevity):



I have learned more about “doing” journalism in this course than all my other classes combined.
In other classes, I learned how to write a lead, conduct interviews, edit, and enough media law to
stay out of trouble. In this course, I have begun to recognize moral issues facing journalists today,
developed my ability to analyze those issues from different points of view and have changed my
outlook on the profession.
Through close analysis, my sense of journalistic moral obligations was developed for the first
time. If I had to sum up the course, I would say that I better understand the daily dilemmas
facing journalists. I better understand the obligations journalists have to their readers, their sub-
jects and themselves. I can better recognize moral issues in many news pieces; in print and on
broadcasts. I feel I am much better prepared to deal with ethical dilemmas when they arise in my
future profession.



[This class] really made me have to think deeper and more about how others also think things
through.



This class makes students think about situations in new ways. I believe it has helped me out of
class as well in considering all sides of an argument and different ways of looking at the problem
at hand.



I think this class was a great gateway to graduation as it prepares you to think outside of the
box. When faced with a dilemma of right choices, we need to think socially not just personally.



The subject matter was abstract at times, but that’s what it’s supposed to be. This course chal-
lenged me in my thinking more so than any class I’m enrolled in this my senior year.



Not every student comes away with such insight, of course. Negative reviews of media
ethics classes typically include one concern: There’s often no “right answer.” As one
student wrote:
It frequently felt like we were just given scenarios in class to talk about . . . but it was all for
nothing because it wasn’t as if there was a correct answer.
 Introduction 5

To that, we say: You are right that there are no correct answers, if you define “cor-
rect” as “black or white.” That can be frustrating—but the nature of “doing ethics”
means that thoughtful people may reach different-but-defensible decisions to the same
set of circumstances. As fictional president Josiah Bartlett said in Season 4, Episode 6
of The West Wing: “Every once in a while . . . there’s a day with an absolute right and
an absolute wrong. But those days almost always include body counts” (Sorkin et al.,
2002).
You may never have to make life-or-death ethical decisions, but the thinking skills
you need to make less important decisions are often the same you’d need to make
life-or-death calls.

This book includes Elliott’s objectives and insights from the Hastings Center Institute of
Society, Ethics, and Life Sciences,* a bioethics ethics think tank that has helped many teach-
ers frame their ethics courses. The Hastings Center (1980) suggests ethics courses should
help students in:

1. Recognizing moral issues.

2. Developing analytical skills.
3. Tolerating—and resisting—disagreement and ambiguity.
4. Stimulating the moral imagination.
5. Eliciting a sense of moral obligation and personal responsibility.

The first three relate specifically to doing ethics in media; the final two may be more dif-
ficult to achieve.

Recognizing Moral Issues

You cannot solve a problem that you do not know exists. Failing to recognize an ethical issue
is like failing to recognize a severe medical condition: The results can be devastating. To do
ethics, you must develop the skills to recognize and define problematic ethical areas, such as
knowing that an act may not be ethical even if it is legal. You must understand the duties of
communicators and their impact on society, and other variables in a business whose social
significance gives it many freedoms and responsibilities. Because of this, we devote a good
deal of attention to asking—and attempting to answer—the deceptively simple question:
“What’s your problem?”
The Socratic method of asking and answering questions works well here (Chris-
tians & Covert, 1980). Classrooms should be safe places where students and teachers
offer ethically acceptable reactions to mass media problems and sharpen the ability to
discover ethical dimensions of practices and policies. You build this skill, as with most
skills, through practice. When you do this well, you gain greater insight and knowledge.
When an open classroom does this well, discussions naturally advance from moralizing
toward moral philosophy.
Students with practical media experience may be quicker to recognize media ethics issues
than other students. Regardless of your on-the-job experience, you can benefit from an
ethics course that requires greater precision in defining concepts and principles, stronger
articulation of the moral dimensions of case studies, and showing patience by delaying judg-
ment until you have systematically thought through the problems at hand.
6 Introduction
Developing Analytical Skills
The subject matters of ethics—whether the circumstances in question or possible solutions—
are often in dispute. This makes the dynamic tension arising from an open marketplace of
philosophical positions very stimulating. It is a stretch sometimes to connect hypothetical
and real issues raised in this course with the classical and contemporary theories introduced
throughout this book. However, you’ll likely see a significant improvement in your intel-
lectual life when you make the connections and analyze the case studies using the new
vocabularies and insights that such theories provide. Likewise, analytical skills come through
learning and applying various decision-making models or justification processes.
By the time you take a media ethics course, you probably have worked hard mastering
practical skills such as news reporting, visual communication and storytelling, social media,
developing public relations and advertising campaigns, and more. And you probably learned
those skills more through instruction and rote than through individual exploration. An eth-
ics course, however, should take a different path. Developing analytical skills means demon-
strating intellectual coherence and consistency—skills demanded across all media enterprises
by practitioners who must understand and interpret complex events. The ethics course
should hone these abilities.
You build those analytical skills through rigorous argumentation with attention to evi-
dence, not rampant moralizing. You should be motivated to state why a particular prob-
lem has ethical dimensions, and you should be able to formulate a hypothesis. You should
consider possible solutions to the problem during brainstorming sessions, but then halt the
brainstorming and pay careful attention to detail—to causes and consequences, to people
affected by ethical or non-ethical decisions, to institutional norms and values. Then you
should test those possible solutions against traditional philosophic principles.
One tried-and-true way to develop analytical skills is
to use a justification model. A good model provides the It’s certainly hard to be truly
template to frame our decision making by asking us to good . . .
respond systematically to a specific set of questions. If
—Simonides, quoted in Plato’s
the questions and answers are based on moral philoso- Protagorus (350 B.C.E.).
phy and reflect a high grip on reality, we are “doing eth-
ics” as it should be done in the professional arena. This
is why we framed this book around the “5Ws and H” questions—six fundamental, easily
remembered, philosophically sound questions to be asked and answered when you think you
may face a moral dilemma. We will introduce the list later in this chapter and have much say
much about all six questions throughout the text.

Tolerating—and Resisting—Disagreement and Ambiguity

Critics who think of “media ethics” as an oxymoron often point to the worst examples they
can think of when trying to paint all practitioners as equally unethical.
Public practitioners may point to Ron Ziegler, the very loyal White House spokesman for
Richard Nixon who systematically lied and misled about the Watergate scandal while slinging
mud at journalists covering the story. Once the reality of the White House’s activities were out and
the lies obvious, he said, “mistakes were made” and that his previous statements were “inoperative.”
Journalists may point to Jayson Blair of the New York Times, who in 2003 quit his job
(and contributed to the job losses of some of his bosses) after being caught in blatant lies
and plagiarism (New York Times, 2003) and leading to a updated ethics guide the next year
(New York Times, 2004). Now-retired University of Maryland professor Carl Sessions Stepp
 Introduction 7
once told a journalism class that the student often visited his office, but it never occurred
to Stepp to tell him not to lie or make up stuff. That was Stepp’s closing comment to the
class: “If no one has never told you, let me be the one: Don’t make up stuff. And don’t lie.”
You just read this book’s only reference to those two people, because talking about them
is boring: All of us should agree that lying and plagiarism are wrong. Such cases provide
cautionary tales for practitioners, but they are not all that philosophically interesting. To “do
ethics” means working through more complicated issues.
The goal is to make you more comfortable in the deeper water and with more compli-
cated issues, where you will not find answers in the back of this book. A media ethics class
should inspire open discourse, and it is only normal that the discussions include disagree-
ment and ambiguity. Many of the questions and case studies seemingly have no clear answers
at first, and articulating opinions can take up much class time. However, not all opinions
have equal intellectual or ethical weight. The probing should go far beneath the surface, ask-
ing the “why” about the “what.” Instead of relying upon convention and “of course” answers
(moving beyond the claim that something “just is because it just is”), we should peel away
layers of that anti-intellectual moralism.
Insights into epistemology—the study of how we know what we think we know—can
clarify how we form our opinions and beliefs. A natural and healthy evolution may occur:
opinions and beliefs imposed by authority and tenaciously adhered to suddenly seem inad-
equate, and we begin to tolerate some disagreement and ambiguity. We ultimately develop
an individual commitment and sense of personal responsibility. We take ownership of our
opinions and beliefs. We take conscious actions on our beliefs. We become acutely aware of
the consequences of our actions.
Many students are uncomfortable when discussions Honest disagreement is often
end with no single “right” answer to the questions a good sign of progress.
raised in their ethics class. Philosophers have been
—Mahatma Gandhi (1869–
working for two millennia on these issues, so why
1948), Indian lawyer, ethicist,
don’t we have absolutes? Frustrated with the inherent
and activist. Quoted in Kush
disagreements among various schools of philosophic (2009, p. 39).
thought, and concerned that we have not reached
clear and universal moral absolutes governing media
ethics, we might tend to revert to relativism, arguing that all opinions have equal value.
When the desire to settle for relativism rears its ugly head, we should instead widen the
arena of investigation and work through various moral points of view to discern for our-
selves a justifiable system of ethical decision making. If everyone in the class (including
the instructor) grapples honestly with areas of disagreement, all should be receptive to
the analytical skills-building exercises as their individual and collective moral imagina-
tions are stimulated. Members of the class may take steps toward developing a sense of
moral obligation and personal responsibility.
It would be nice to say this call for tolerating disagreement needs little further com-
ment. The best professors avoid mindlessly promoting ideological ethics and undisputed
conventions; we assume all of us will naturally appreciate the need for some discussion,
disagreement, and tolerance. However, in times of “politically correct” speech when
“far too many colleges across the country fail to live up to their free speech obligations
in policy and in practice” (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, 2020, p. 2),
we may be unnecessarily restricted in exploring the natural boundaries of our ideolo-
gies and value-based words, ideas, and behaviors. An intellectually honest media ethics
course is a natural venue for such an exploration—even as we tolerate and resist some
disagreement.
8 Introduction
Stimulating the Moral Imagination
Unlike the first three objectives, this fourth goal of media ethics instruction may not be
fully compatible with typical mass communication practice and instruction. Stimulation of
the moral imagination demands that the course work involve more than practical skills or
even abstract intellectual exercises. It also means that our feelings and imagination must be
prodded. Clifford Christians and Catherine Covert (1980) argued that moral imagination
will not be stimulated until actual human beings and their welfare become central to the
classroom enterprise. That may be difficult, given the realities of media enterprises as they
are taught and practiced today.
Traditional mass communicators lack one key characteristic shared by other profession-
als. As we’ll discuss in Chapter 3, “true” professionals such as doctors and lawyers work for
individual clients who come to them with articulated needs and expectations. Mass com-
municators tend to deal with customers—undifferentiated members of the public. As a
result, mass communicators may feel little empathy for people they report about, persuade,
entertain, and report to—their sources and audiences. They may pay lip service to the needs
of T.C. Pits (“The Celebrated Person in the Street”), but mass communicators more likely
focus on appealing to a mass audience they perceive as vast, anonymous, heterogeneous,
and undifferentiated. These realities of top-down traditional media may explain why many
young people turn elsewhere for entertainment, information, and persuasion. Online media
provide a real or imagined sense of interconnectedness, recognizing sources and subjects
as “real people” together in “real time.” Little wonder traditional media practitioners, who
have always held to a top-down model of experts-serving-masses, struggle with moving
from talking “at” an audience to an online world where the public are media consumers and
media makers. The ramifications of this fundamental shift are enormous.
Meanwhile, it is hard to be idealistic and empathic in today’s increasingly depersonalized
mass media institutions, where neophyte practitioners see themselves as interchangeable
cogs in a corporate machine. Many students worry about finding a media job that pays a
living wage, let alone one that offers autonomy in their work and in their ethics. The pro-
fessional traits of “servant” and “steward” may not come naturally to them—even as those
traits become all the more urgent among media practitioners who work with less supervi-
sion because middle management herds have thinned, and among practitioners who create
their own media outlets and answer to no one but themselves and their own sense of ethics.
A study of media ethics should reinforce the fact that media practitioners have an ethical
obligation to provide the best information, entertainment, and persuasion to audiences, and
that producing these “products” in accordance with moral principles often entails suffering
or happiness on the part of “real” people.
Serving media audiences means practitioners must help the public make sense of the con-
flicting messages that clutter communication channels. We should begin questioning each
media craft’s standard operating principles, or tired bromides such as “go with what you’ve
got” in journalism, “all publicity is good publicity” in public relations, “if our competition
is going to do it, so should we” in advertising, or “if it’s legal, it’s ethical” in many media
businesses.
Stimulating the moral imagination means questioning those “craft values” described in
the previous paragraph, and asking why deadlines or technology or economic constraints
can produce behaviors that would be less tolerable if such pressures were absent or lessened.
In the quiet after the deadline has been met, introspection and second guessing may give
rise to questions of impact and empathy. If an ethics course stimulates the moral imagina-
tion, such questions will become internalized, and media practitioners might consider their
permutations before the next deadline.
 Introduction 9
A typical concern expressed by students is that it is
An ethic isn’t a fact you can
fine to sit around and leisurely discuss issues in an anti- look up. It’s a way of thinking.
septic classroom, but “the real world” provides scarcely
enough time to do the job, much less play abstract intel- —Theodore Sturgeon
lectual games. Our response: If you learn to “do ethics” (1918–1985), writer. Quoted in
Sturgeon (1953, p. 193).
in the classroom often and well enough, you will build
patterns and mindsets that help you make more rapid
and sophisticated decisions under pressure, so each new
dilemma is not written upon a blank tablet. (Surgeons cannot wait until the patient arrives
on the operating table before learning how to do medical ethics. Just as ethical “front-load-
ing” is a worthy goal in medical school, so it should be in communication schools.)
Before we leave this topic, consider another problem with stimulating the moral imagi-
nation of media students and practitioners. We tend to think it is the responsibility of the
public, not the communicators, to impose meaning onto and deal with consequences of
news, persuasion, and entertainment.
Journalists and other news and opinion creators, for instance, may think that their
major responsibility is to meet the deadline to report their facts and opinion. If that is
so, they spend little time considering the consequences of what they write. They merely pro-
vide the “facts.” Once published, it is assumed that the libertarian “marketplace of ideas” kicks
in, where the truth emerges after fair competition among the abundance of ideas. If individu-
als’ rights are considered at all, they are seen through the legal lens of privacy, intrusion, libel,
fair trial, etc., rather than moral rights that include dignity, well-being, peace of mind, etc.
Public relations and advertising may be motivated by the sometimes-contra-
dictory goals of informing and persuading. They may quickly turn from one
campaign to the next, without considering the impact of the first. They can gaslight or
spam. They may not feel the quiet tug of their responsibility to the public when they feel
the immediate demand to be loyal to their client. Some persuaders claim it is not their
responsibility to control the effects of their messages—they just present them for public
consideration, hoping their messages will get through and bring the desired results. Given
this attitude, and the pressures of the moment, advertisers and PR practitioners may be act-
ing irresponsibly—without even knowing it. Moreover, the changing nature of technology
brings new marketing practices—and new ethical concerns (Schauster & Neill, 2017).
Entertainment media workers create movies, shows, books, and other products that
they hope will send a message, be appealing, or at least sell. If their topic is based on
a true story, they might stretch a verifiable fact in order to create a more commercially inter-
esting story or seek to tell a “higher truth,” which might lead to the public thinking what
they saw was what actually happened. If their message includes sex, violence, or other con-
troversial content, they expect that ratings systems such as the Motion Picture Association of
America (2020) or the British Board of Film Classification (2021) will call attention to the
content so parents can make viewing decisions for children. Meanwhile, they market their
work as they can—often calling attention to the most outrageous actions and ideas that make
the world seem more violent (Gerbner, 1998), twisted, or otherwise different from reality.
Social media workers can use data collected from users without those users fully
understanding. They can dive into the cesspool of online commentary to ridicule
rivals or redirect a conversation to suit their ends. They can stealthily use others to do their
bidding, or make an endorsement seem to come from a third party. They can blame their
misdeeds on social media’s nature as a fast and transitory means of communication. Regard-
less of whether their aim is to inform, persuade, or entertain, they can create a hyperreality
(Borgmann, 1992) that can make us do and say things online that we would never do or say
to a living, breathing person in our physical presence.
10 Introduction
Eliciting a Sense of Moral Obligation and Personal Responsibility
This final objective, as with the fourth, is difficult to attain but worth attempting in a media
ethics class. Several times in the semester, we should face such fundamental questions as:

 “Why should I be moral?”

 “What are my ethical duties and obligations as an individual, as a student, and as a profes-
sional mass communicator?”
 “Given my freedoms, what are my responsibilities?”

These abstract questions are the heart of the enterprise. They ask us to take ethics seriously
and to recognize that there is more to ethics than recognizing ethical problems, having ana-
lytical abilities, staying open-minded, and being morally stimulated. Yet this fifth objective
may be the most problematic, because it opens what someone once described as “Pandora’s
keg of nails.” Inside reside concerns about the balance between education and indoctrina-
tion, or learning about ethics vs. doing ethics. The goal should not be to brainwash or
to hector, but to provide insight and individual decision-making ability.
Ethics instruction must appeal to the will, expect some sort of action, and engage decision
making in order to elicit moral obligation, as Christians and Covert wrote decades ago. This
assumes that people are free to make moral choices and to be held responsible for them.
However, this freedom to make moral choices may be limited in mass media. Practitioners
usually work for profit-focused institutions, or for non-profits seeking to stay in operation.
They face conditions of controlled pandemonium, and they remain somewhat removed
from the people affected by their actions—factors that can isolate ethical decisions from
other routine decisions. More than one philosopher has said that the ultimate ethical deci-
sion may be whether to accept the universe or to protest against it. Yet many media practi-
tioners, particularly young ones working at traditional media institutions, are not routinely
in the position to make ultimate ethical decisions. Bloggers, freelancers, and other entrepre-
neurial media practitioners actually may be in a better position to make “the ultimate ethical
decision”—meaning that the bar for moral obligation and personal responsibility may be set
higher for these people than for traditional media practitioners.
Thinking this way may require us to question the integrity of the media companies
that employ us. As professional media workers sandwiched into a profit-centered corpo-
rate structure, our creative energies can easily become just another assembly-line product
stamped out to meet market demand. Hanging out our own shingle and saying “to heck
with the corporate rat race” makes us no less susceptible to these moral challenges. In fact,
new sets of challenges arise.
All of us bear some responsibility for ethical decision making at the organizational, as well
as the personal, level. Our course in media ethics must give us some guidance in bringing
ethical insights to bear on conflicts between personal and organizational commitments. The
responsibility to the public sphere must be borne by both individuals and organizations.
Honing a sense of moral obligation and personal responsibility means leading an exam-
ined life—surely a worthy goal for any university experience. Moral psychologists tell us that
acting out of a sense of commitment and principled behavior occurs only at higher stages
of moral development, as we will discuss in Chapter 4. Higher stages of development come
only after we learn to internalize, reflect upon and then act upon moral principles. Our con-
science becomes refined after we have progressed through stages of egoism, relativism, and
culturally defined goals and rules. We can achieve an examined life and a degree of moral
autonomy, become moral agents on our own, and even reach a point where we can criticize
society’s rules and values.
 Introduction 11
If we think we will emerge at the end of the semester
To will oneself moral and to
as “moral heroes and sheroes,” we may be setting our will oneself free are one and
sights unrealistically high. Research indicates that the the same decision.
overwhelming majority of us operate at conventional
stages of morality, motivated largely by society’s expec- —Simone de Beauvoir (1908–
1986), philosopher. Quoted in
tations and temporal pressures. But we should always
de Beauvoir (1947, p. 24).
hope for more. . . .

Doing Ethics by Asking and Answering the “5Ws and H”

This book introduces its own comprehensive process for doing ethics. It draws from a
variety of justification models to be discussed in Chapter 2, and anticipating the insights
shared by philosophers in later chapters. This process is useful not only in professional
communications fields, but in everyday life—on deadline, and in the quiet post mortem
period.
By asking and answering these (deceptively) simple questions, we push ourselves to apply
moral philosophy directly, systematically, and publicly. The “5Ws and H” list asks:

1. What’s your problem?

2. Why not follow the rules?
3. Who wins, who loses?
4. What’s it worth?
5. What do philosophers say?
6. How’s your decision going to look?

What’s Your Problem?

Spell out, in some detail, what makes this situation a moral dilemma. Leave yourself with
a clearly stated question to be answered. Acknowledge that you may not have complete
information. Look at your problem in detail and from different points of view. As the case
develops, recognize that additional events and new insights may cause you to adjust your
preliminary answers to one or more of the other questions. You may have to return to the
problem and repeat the cycle. If you become hung up along the way, it may be because you
have not defined the situation thoroughly enough. Chapter 1 introduces ways to define and
understand issues that may have moral dimensions.

Why Not Follow the Rules?

Are there some precedents, guidelines, codes, or laws you should keep in mind? If so, are
there reasons why following the rules cannot resolve your dilemma in an ethical way? Might
you be following the rules but still acting unethically? As Chapter 2 will reveal, codes of
ethics and policy statements have strengths and weaknesses. As we will explore in Chap-
ter 3, media traditions and notions of professionalism help explain the formal and informal
“rules” and how they vary among cultures, nations, types of practitioners, and even media
organizations.
And as every media law student learns, media practices are influenced by statutes,
legislative and executive acts, policy statements, constitutional interpretations, and
other formal and informal governmental actions. Recognizing and following these rules
imposed by others should be considered necessary—but not always sufficient—when
doing ethics.
12 Introduction
Who Wins, Who Loses?
Identify the stakeholders, and determine what impact your decision may have on them in
the short term and in the long term. Who deserves more ethical consideration than others?
This question asks you to identify your loyalties. To whom are you ultimately loyal,
and to whom at intermediate steps are you loyal? Who benefits? Do any particular peo-
ple or institutions deserve special loyalties, especially those who are weaker or have faced
discrimination? Who could be hurt? (You might even carefully ask: Who may deserve to
be hurt?)
You may feel competing loyalties to yourself, your family and friends, your boss, your
company or firm, your professional colleagues, your clients/customers/audiences, and soci-
ety at large. You may feel one loyalty has supremacy at one stage of the decision-making
process, but other loyalties may dominate at another stage.
The theories of moral development described in Chapter 4 show that self-loyalty moti-
vates us at low levels of moral development; that group conformity/collectivist thinking
occurs at middle stages, and at the highest levels we feel loyalty to moral philosophy and
make our own decisions to use moral principles in showing loyalty to all humanity.
Additional insights into loyalty appear in Chapter 5, which explores the complex nature
of loyalty as a general construct. Chapter 6 addressed the considerations of media work and
diversity.

What’s It Worth?
Prioritize your values—both moral and non-moral values—and decide which one(s) you
won’t compromise. Values, as we discuss in Chapter 7, help us rationalize or defend behav-
ior. They are standards of choice through which we individually and collectively seek mean-
ing, satisfaction, and worth. We seek consistency in our values. Values can describe desirable
conduct (such as “being helpful” or “being independent”) or describe end results (such as
“flourishing” or living “an exciting life”). We might conclude that values define what we
stand for.
From there, we focus on specific values that are particularly important in communication
fields—truth telling and the problems of deception in Chapter 8, the complicated values
related to persuasion and advocacy in Chapter 9, and privacy in Chapter 10.

What Do Philosophers Say?

Thinkers since time immemorial have considered what it means to be moral, and listening
to them will help you decide which school of philosophy or set of moral principles provides
you with a moral compass. We shouldn’t moralize or give inconsistent, ad hoc, or dogmatic
advice; instead, we should use moral philosophy to discover general, consistent advice drawn
from the wisdom of the ages. Chapters 11 through 13 discuss ethical principles, as laid down
by philosophers, that should illuminate the issues.
Some well-known principles we’ll introduce include:

 Mill’s utilitarianism, which says we seek to do the most good or least harm for the great-
est number, even as we treat people as ends unto themselves and not as a means to an end.
In this way, we consider consequences.
 Kant’s categorical imperative, which says we follow our ethical duty and do only what
we would want everyone to do in all circumstances, even as we treat people as an ends
unto themselves and not as a means to an end. In this way, we do not worry so much about
consequences.
 Introduction 13
 Ross’s prima facie duties, which says we there are duties that “on their face” we should
do—unless we discover higher duties that are more important. In this way, we can use our
intuition and experience as we consider both consequences and duty.
 Aristotle’s theory of virtue, in which we consider role models and seek to make virtuous
decisions as we become virtuous persons ourselves.
 Rawls’s theory of justice, in which we consider fairness and inequalities of power and
other goods.
 Gilligan’s (and others’) feminist ethics of care, which considers compassion and com-
munity among other values.

People who seek to do the ethically right thing usually follow one or more of the principles
consistently. Unless your values and principles align with one another, you will struggle to
find consistency when doing ethics.
As you think back about decisions you’ve made, you likely used one or more of these
approaches—and may not have even realized it. This question and those chapters will help
you better understand these competing theories, the pros and cons of each, and how they
are used in doing media ethics.

How’s Your Decision Going to Look?

State your conclusion. Imagine what your friends and people you respect will think about
your decision making—not just the decision, but the process. The bottom line should
emerge logically from your responses to the first five questions. You should be willing to be
held accountable for those choices. Your justification process should be transparent, and it
should withstand the test of publicity. Working in media means your decisions are likely to
become public, and Chapter 14 considers these topics, intermixed with the constant con-
cern of media practitioners, to establish and maintain credibility.

The “5Ws and H” Bottom Line

As with other useful justification models, this checklist remains simple enough to grasp read-
ily yet flexible enough to apply broadly. It can guide your decision making while simultane-
ously stretching it. It works particularly well for mass communicators, because it focuses our
attention on a specific quandary while testing broader variables in a public arena.
This checklist acknowledges the importance of rules, policies, and codes, reminding us
that many of the issues we face may have been directly addressed in the past. It demands
that you pay close attention to the needs of numerous stakeholders. It expects you to clarify
conflicts over professional and non-professional values. It challenges you to make decisions
consistent with principles of moral philosophy. And—perhaps of unique importance in a
profession whose work product is on constant public display, and whose jobs involve criti-
quing others—it wants you to be transparent and to hold yourself accountable.
You will use “5Ws and H” test throughout this book to work through media ethics case
studies—and perhaps find it useful in other decisions throughout your life.

Conclusions
Media practitioners should view life as a continuing stream of experience, not a series
of disconnected episodes or unfortunate events. We are concerned when media workers
quickly react (and, sometimes, overreact) to situations using only the unexamined internal-
ized standards of their occupations. We are pained to see people focus immediately on action
14 Introduction
rather than ethical implications, yet expect immediate gratification. We find it problematic
for media practitioners to remain aloof from events, to suspend judgment, to act as disin-
terested observers rather than participants. Likewise, it is disconcerting to see too many ad
hoc responses to morally challenging incidents, and few appeals to principle or theory as a
framework for decision making.
Thus, our study of media ethics must encourage us to consider long-term consequences
as well as immediate action. We should learn to tolerate ambiguity and unresolved dilem-
mas, to appreciate slow and deliberate coming to judgment, work to invoke principles, and
develop a sense of moral obligation.
These qualities are devalued when media practitioners take an episodic view of the world.
Consider what happens to society when journalists (and their audiences) blindly
accept a premise of traditional objectivity, which says that news stories should be bal-
anced and should present “multiple sides of the question.” When seeking this artificial bal-
ance, journalists may have become professionally detached from distinguishing good and evil
in what they observe.
Public relations and advertising fail society when they accept without question
loyalty to their employer over loyalty to the public, and believe that closing the
sale is more valuable than truth and fairness to audiences.
Workers in entertainment media have incredible power to shape society, but they can
easily take shortcuts that shortchange themselves and their audiences intellectually
and morally. Not every show has to stimulate the moral imagination of an audience, of
course, but the desire to titillate and include gratuitous ideas and images to get tongues wag-
ging and take consumers’ money adds to the societal cost of a dumbed-down, ethically
bankrupt public.
The end result of such unquestioned acceptance of their crafts is that practitioners become
excluded from the ultimate ethical decision: to accept the universe or to protest against it.
Certainly, the goal of professional education is to provide immediately usable skills and
attitudes valuable on the job. But it has a companion purpose—to preserve and protect those
more humane considerations sometimes trampled in the professions’ rush to deadline, the con-
trolled pandemonium of the broadcast control room, the account executives’ harried schedules
and conflicted loyalties, and the need to tweet now or lose the moment. Prospective media
practitioners should be able to consider the more philosophic long-term view to balance the
pressures toward the narrow and the episodic approach is common in the “professional” milieu.

Epilogue: How to Use This Book

This book’s subtitle—Theories and Practical Applications—suggests the balance of understand-
ing theory and being able to use it in the real world. The authors have both terminal degrees
that included consideration of ethics theories, as well as combined scores of years working in
mass media. We appreciate the need for both high-minded consideration of ethics and the
need to get the work done on time. We kept both goals in mind while creating this book,
now updated to a second edition we hope improves the original by adding more focus on
diversity, social media, and adopting to continuing changes in the media industry.

Theories
You cannot expand your ethical horizons without keeping a constant eye on ethical theory.
Thinking about theory may make your eyes roll because it seems boring, abstract, or dis-
connected from life, but it’s useful to remember what Lewin (1945, p. 129) and others (it’s
unclear who originated the expression) said: “Nothing is as practical as a good theory.”
 Introduction 15
A theory is a systematically related generalization that calls for further analysis of phe-
nomena and variables. Theory does not flow full-blown from the pens of casual observers.
Rather, it is an end result of long, careful analysis of many variables. A theory is not a uni-
versal law that provides complete explanations with unquestionable detail of all the causes
and effects of phenomena being studied.
Ethical theory is similarly able to provide an understanding of an idea, or at least provide
the vocabulary to describe it. For example, if someone asks you how you make decisions
and you say you try to do the most good or the least harm in a situation, you might feel
reassured in knowing that there’s a term for it—teleological ethics. Knowing that term tells
you that there’s theory behind your approach, that others have thought about and described
that approach long before you, and that there’s more for you to learn.
When couching a valid theoretical framework in the context of a moral dilemma, your
study of media ethics should counterbalance all the pressures to just get on with the job,
finish it quickly, and hang the consequences.
Having said that, it is important to remember that theories are often incomplete
and contradictory. This is especially true in ethical theory, as you’ll see in Chapters 11
through 13. The goal of being ethical may be the same, but the considerations and
approaches are different. This gets us back to the “tolerating ambiguity” consideration
of a few pages ago.
We are working in a theoretical realm when we grapple with a never-ending series of
questions about the nature of our work and its impact on the political, social, and individual
environments. We should embrace the opportunity to learn and appreciate theory. In fact,
there’s a theory about it—Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which says that only
when lower levels of needs are met can we seek to satisfy higher levels of needs, such as seek-
ing esteem and achieving our full potential. (More simply put: You can’t think lofty thoughts
when you are choking.) Being able to spend time thinking about theory means we are
moving beyond basic needs into self-fulfillment. Moreover, Maslow’s hierarchy also says that
understanding and using ethical theories can lead to personal fulfillment and even meet the
high-level “transcendence” need of helping others live fulfilled lives (Maslow, 1954, 1970).
Please do not waste this opportunity.

Practical Applications
The compound title of the book you are reading reflects the authors’ conviction that mak-
ing ethical judgments is a process (“doing ethics”) that meshes theory with practice. In
media ethics, useful theories should connect closely to a world where multiple stakeholders
constantly make decisions that impact other stakeholders and shape the larger environment.
We divided this book into six sections with 14 chapters, each designed to both introduce
theory and bring it to life through practical applications. Each section falls under one of the
“5Ws and H” questions introduced a few pages back. In more formal terms, these questions
assess the recognition of moral problems, codes and rules, stakeholder theory, competing
values, moral philosophers, and accountability. The “5Ws and H” approach has met with
success in seminars and professional workshops with executives and middle managers, and
through more a decade with the first edition of this book used at universities worldwide.
A brief introductory essay follows each of the six questions, describing the chapters that
will flesh out the questions. Each question stands alone as a line of inquiry into media
ethics, but the process of asking and answering is cumulative. In our experience as media
practitioners and teachers, we have found this six-step justification process useful because
it encourages people to stay on track, consider numerous alternatives, and reach justifiable
conclusions.
16 Introduction
Most of this book’s chapters end with several practical applications and case studies. The
practical applications offer in-depth questions to start your thinking on topics related to the
chapter. The questions have no right or wrong answers, but instead are designed to lead you
to introspection, to clarify your own beliefs, and to prompt you to think about things you’ve
seen or done in your life that might make more sense using the vocabulary and theories
you’ve learned in this book. Some instructors use these questions in class discussions or in
tests and quizzes, not to judge an answer right or wrong but to gauge how well you struggle
with the topic and explain your thoughtful logic in the answer.
Each case study is designed to help you consider the chapter’s focus as you work through
situations you may one day face in your career, or situations you’d do well to understand in
your quest to be a more informed media consumer. They are divided into the following six
categories.

Journalists, regardless of the publication format.

Digital media practitioners, such as bloggers or others who run websites and other
enterprises that may include journalism and commentary but face more considerations
about advertising and marketing.
Public relations practitioners.
Advertising practitioners.
People in entertainment media, such as television and film.
Social media, which nearly all of us use for work and personal purposes.

Some of the cases are scenarios likely to affect a specific career, while others include a
single scenario but pose different questions for people with different communication spe-
cialties. (For example, a single scenario often poses different questions for journalists and for
public relations practitioners.) You may find it tempting to focus on the cases most closely
connected to your current career interest. However, take time to think about it through
the lens of others, because: (1) many mass communicators shift specialties throughout their
careers, and you may someday find yourself in an entirely different environment from the
one you are anticipating, and (2) thinking about other communication specialties can both
stimulate your moral imagination and increase your media literacy as citizen-consumers and
media critics.
While many cases ultimately require you to make a binary “yes-or-no” decision, the goal
is to make you think about your thinking as you work your way through each situation. As
others have said, there may not always be a right or a wrong answer, but some paths to your
decision are better than others.
The cases become increasingly complex later in the book, incorporating more compli-
cated details and larger numbers of stakeholders. This will require you to incorporate your
growing body of knowledge about ethical decision making.
Most of the case studies, strictly speaking, are hypothetical and fictitious. Think of the
sentence in the disclaimer you see after a “based-on-a-true-story” movie: “The story, all
names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identifica-
tion with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or
should be inferred” (Davis, 1987). Many of the cases are romans-à-clef, in which actual people
and events are fictionalized. We do that partly to save some stakeholders from embarrass-
ment, but also to introduce more nuance and ethical gray into cases while also not telling
you what happened in the real case. Cases may not have all the information you would like,
but both cases studies and real life can be like that. We’d like to discourage you from doing
 Introduction 17
post hoc analyses, with 20/20 hindsight, on well-known cases; we’d prefer that you look at
general cases with fresh eyes. While it’s useful to consider why people made the decisions
they made, doing ethics is more than coming over the hill after others have fought the battle
and shooting the wounded.
Just because a case is hypothetical is no reason to lighten your intellectual grip, because
many occurred in real life and are as thorny as situations you might face on the job. How you
work through those situations now may well affect how you deal with complicated ethical
issues once you are on the job.
One more observation about the casework: Most of these scenarios are typical of dilem-
mas that people face in the early stages of their media careers. We see little value in asking
you to think like a network CEO before you’ve finished an internship or your first year on
the job. This does not mean the cases are simplistic. Far from it. But they’re not bogged
down with all the extraneous variables that impact decision making in the corporate towers.
However, if you learn to work smoothly through the level of cases in this book, you’ll find
yourself front-loaded and well prepared to tackle much tougher dilemmas as your careers
develop.
And in case you’re wondering about Freedonia: We needed a location to be home for
our stories, so we chose Freedonia. As Figure 0.1 shows, it is a fictional country in the Marx
Brothers’ 1933 movie Duck Soup. Its rival nation is Sylvania. Some names in some case

Figure 0.1 This promotional photo for the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup appeared in The Washington Examiner
newspaper on Nov. 20, 1933, three days after the movie’s release.
Source: Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Newspaper Navigator, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
18 Introduction
studies are adopted from characters or people associated with this madcap movie now in the
National Film Registry.

Find More at the Online Companion:

Well, who you gonna believe,
DoingEthicsIn.Media me or your own eyes?
The changing nature of mass media, and the desire to —The Marx Brothers, Duck
offer more than text, explain why Doing Ethics in Media: Soup, 1933.
Theories and Practical Applications is more than a book.
The authors also have provided a companion website—
DoingEthicsIn.Media (you also can use the more traditional URL www.doingmediaethics.
com)—that serves as a continually updated landing point for students seeking to stay up to
date and to go deeper in exploring media ethics.
Online, you will find information to:

 Help you study. DoingEthicsIn.Media provides printed and audio summaries for each
chapter, a glossary, and study aids that include flashcards and a recommended reading list.
It also links to sites that provide more depth on ethics that go beyond just the media arena.
Also, you’ll find links to many codes of ethics and to many organizations that focus on media
ethics.
 Discover media products related to media ethics. For decades, moviemakers and oth-
ers have crafted dramatic stories whose tensions are built upon ethical decisions. The site
includes links—generally categorized by media purpose—to some of those movies and
shows.
 Keep you up to date. New media ethics issues pop up daily, and the “how’s it going to
look?” question becomes important when news stories and other commentaries raise ques-
tions about the decisions made by media practitioners. The blog portion of DoingEthicsIn.
Media is where we post musings about current ethics in media, including work done by
students. We mark each entry to note its media focus and its applicable book chapter(s), giv-
ing you an easy way to find recent writing relevant to the topics at hand. Also, follow us on
Twitter at @DoingEthics.
 Give you a place to participate. Each post includes a discussion board ready for your com-
ments, so feel free to contribute your own thinking to the topic. Conversations among stu-
dents (and others) from all over the nation and world are invited. Also, notice the “student
writing” category, where we post interesting items written by current and past students. Feel
free to submit your best work by sending an email to author@doingmediaethics.com. And
use that address to talk with us, too, as we continue to seek feedback about what works,
what doesn’t, how to improve the site, and what needs to be added to (and subtracted from)
new editions of the textbook.

Chapter Vocabulary
Definitions are available in the Glossary at the end of this book.

 Ad hoc moralizing
 Autonomous moral agent
 Categorical imperative
 Introduction 19
 Ethics
 Ethics of care
 Epistemology
 Hierarchy of needs
 Libertarians
 Moral imagination
 Moral philosophy
 Prima facie duties
 Socratic method
 Theory of justice
 Utilitarianism
 Virtue

Note
* The following argument was developed in two previous publications (Black, 1992, 2004) and strongly
influenced by Clifford Christians, particularly in his book with Catherine Covert (Christians & Covert,
1980).
The First Question
What’s Your Problem?

Spell out, in some detail, what—if anything—makes this situation a moral

dilemma. Leave yourself with a clearly stated question to be answered.

The work of moral decision making—the pro-

cess of “doing ethics”—begins by recognizing
the moral dimensions to a situation. Some situa-
tions have obvious sticky ethical questions. Other
situations have moral dimensions that may not be
apparent on the surface, while still others may have
few—if any—moral implications.
Once we recognize that a situation has moral
dimensions, we can better choose among the
many compelling-but-incompatible alternatives.
While “right-vs.-wrong” questions seem obvious,
many situations are “right-vs.-right” dilemmas that
require us to resolve conflicts among core moral
values. We may struggle with the competing inter-
ests of truth vs. loyalty, self vs. community, short-
term vs. long-term implications, or justice vs.
mercy (Kidder, 2009, pp. 6–9). Choosing between
or among unsatisfactory alternatives can be difficult
work.
Chapter 1 offers a primer on ethics and morality
to help you understand moral dilemmas. It outlines
several categories of ethics and shows how we “fix”
our beliefs or reach conclusions, including reliance upon the “authority” of law, codes of
ethics, and individual and professional judgments. The chapter’s primary goal is to help us
recognize, articulate, and solve problems by employing principled decision making rather
than shooting from the hip.
The more practical experience we have, the easier it becomes to recognize the nuances
of our problems and to stay on task. The task becomes more manageable when we have the
necessary tools: the vocabulary of ethics and a commitment to do the right thing for the
right reasons.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315174631-2
1 Ethics and Moral Reasoning

Just as you cannot return from a place you’ve

never been, you cannot solve a problem you don’t To help us identify and resolve
recognize is a problem. This is particularly true in media ethics issues, this chapter:
doing ethics, where the first step is to recognize
the dilemma at hand.  Sets the stage with a pair of
Sometimes, it may not be a moral problem at case studies.
all. These “non-moral” issues—such as deciding
 Offers a primer on ethics and
what font to use in a headline or what color pants
morality.
an actor should wear—are routine, craft-based
decisions that have no moral effects on others (De  Defines several categories of
Vries & Goree, 2004, p. 9). Other “non-moral” ethics.
issues that come disguised as ethical issues may  Shows how people “fix” their
be simply the quality of the work. A story you beliefs—from visceral responses
think is poorly crafted, an ad that fails to persuade to principled decision making.
you, and a show that fails to entertain you are not  Suggests pros and cons of reli-
inherently unethical because they fail to meet ance upon the “authority” of law,
your standards. It could simply be that the crea- codes of ethics, and individual
tors aren’t very good at their jobs but did their judgments.
best, and with good intentions. Hanlon’s Razor  Describes how different types
explains: “Never attribute to malice that which is
of personal and professional
adequately explained by stupidity” (Pinker, 2014).
relationships may affect ethical
Some of these non-moral decisions we must
make, however, require us to take action that obligations.
require solid moral decisions and technical excel-  Provides practical applications
lence. For example: for further study, as well as case
A journalist covering a murder often con- studies.
tacts the victim’s family to give them the
opportunity to talk about their loved one—a dif-
ficult and often unpleasant task for the reporter.
The ethics and skill come in knowing when and how to make contact, in showing tact and
respect during the interaction, and using the information appropriately or gracefully accept-
ing “no” for an answer.
Public relations and advertising practitioners portray their products and clients
in the best possible light. The ethics and skill come in navigating the need to
serve both the client and the public, and in balancing truth and distortion.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315174631-3
24 The First Question
Social media and other digital media workers experts link to web content,
in hopes that readers will click to see the content and its surrounding ads.
The ethics and skill come in knowing how to entice people to click without resorting to
misleading “click bait” techniques that overpromise and under-deliver, and make read-
ers feel like their time was wasted and their intelligence insulted when they followed
the link.
A moviemaker producing a film on a true story must cut parts of that story, because
too much extraneous detail and too many characters may bore and confuse audiences.
The ethics and skill come in knowing what to cut to tell the story as fairly and accurately as
possible, without leading the audiences to inaccurate conclusions.
And then there are moral issues that involve complex questions of morality and ethics—
the subject matter of this textbook. Both moral and non-moral problems become easier to
resolve with practice. Just as experience (usually) makes us better at what we do, making
good decisions in matters of morality is also a skill that improves with practice. That skill—
the process we call “doing ethics”—begins by carefully articulating the problem, and then
systematically resolving it.
Some issues and actions are clearly black and white, right or wrong, and they usu-
ally deserve little consideration. You know, for example, that it’s wrong to kidnap. And
because the word “kidnap” comes from the Latin word “plagiarius” (Bailey, 2011), you
know that it is wrong to steal the works of others. If you did not know kidnapping is
wrong, then let us be the ones to tell you so we can move on to more interesting ethi-
cal topics.
This would be a thin book if ethical decision mak-
I realized all the writing I love
ing were simply a matter of choosing between “should lives in the gray area. And it’s
I plagiarize or not?” or other choices that are clearly a part of getting older, you
good vs. bad or right vs. wrong. Usually, dilemmas realize that binary thinking of
swirl in a rainbow of gray. We cannot resolve moral “this happened because of
dilemmas simply by invoking institutional traditions that” is too simplistic. It doesn’t
and blindly following someone else’s rules. This chap- really answer the question.
ter starts the process of “doing ethics” by introducing —Marti Noxon, writer/producer.
some of the vocabulary to help you speak the lan- Quoted in Olsen (2017,
guage of a seasoned decision maker, and help you find para. 20).
ways to identify what is (and what is not) an ethical
problem.

Two Case Studies

Two hypothetical case studies on the next few pages reveal the complexity of media ethics
and the challenge of “getting it right.” The first explores conflicts of interest, a perplexing
challenge in modern media. The second is based on a composite of events and choices
faced by a public relations practitioner. For each case, you (and your classmates) are first
asked to identify the central problems, and then to define the moral dilemmas. You will
find a number of problems nestled within each case. Not all the problems are moral or
ethical ones. Some are personal, pragmatic, or craft-based “non-moral” concerns that
impinge upon essential moral dilemmas. The goal at this early juncture is not to com-
pletely work through all the subtleties of both cases, but to discover the basic nature of the
problems. Once you’ve carefully defined the problems, the job of resolving them becomes
much easier.
 Chapter 1: Ethics and Moral Reasoning 25

Case 1.A Digital Media: Take the Money—and Keep Your

Self-Respect?

Figure 1.1 Even something as simple as a bowl of soup can lead to an ethical dilemma.
Source: Photo by avlxyz, licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.
https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/7e1e8ce0-a3bc-4550-8bf9-fd855833a5cb

In your spare time you have built a successful site, www.freedonialive.com, dedicated
to all things in your native community. The site draws thousands of daily readers inter-
ested in your thinking about the news of the day, and even the movies you have seen,
the restaurants you visit, and the products you use. You are becoming your own media
brand, turning heads with the smart writing, wry humor, and independent thinking
you display on the site and on social media. You are engaged in social media, too, in
hopes of drawing people to the site because your site sells advertising.
Your work, however, does not pay for itself. You generate a little revenue through a
few local sponsors, an online “tip jar,” and search engine deals that pay when people
click on ad links placed by the search engine. It does not cover your household bills,
much less what you consider reasonable compensation for all the time you spend on
this labor of love.
So you are listening when you receive an offer from Manfred Marketing, a Freedo-
nia-based public relations/advertising firm. It represents many local potential advertis-
ers, and it promises a steady income if you provide at least two favorable references
each week about its clients’ products and services. Moreover, the company will pay for
the products and services you write about on your site and mention in social media.
It is enough money that, with a little penny pinching, you could quit your day job and
live your dream to fully focus on the site. You can begin to dream about making your
media work even better—and attracting more readers and advertisers, and therefore
become even more lucrative and influential.
Manfred Marketing’s first assignment for you is to eat at a Freedonia restaurant
and write about the duck soup—a food you’ve never had and may not even like.
The marking company has given you no guidelines beyond “favorable reference”
requests, but its clear aim is to use your personal credibility for its word-of-mouth
campaigns.
Before you eat that bowl of duck soup, you must make some decisions.
26 The First Question

What’s Your Problem?

Is this an everyday routine situation with an everyday routine solution—or are you fac-
ing a moral dilemma? If it’s a moral dilemma, describe what you should consider as
you try to reach a defensible solution. Have economic realities and options for finan-
cial independence put you into a win—win, a win—lose, or a no-win situation? Could
you do this without looking like you sold out to advertisers? Are any of your loyalties
in conflict? Is the problem resolved by following a set of rules or code of ethics? What
are the short-term and long-term consequences of your choices?

Case 1.B Public Relations: A Dilemma About Loyalty

and Promise Keeping1

Figure 1.2 When a paper mill is set to close, you have to make decisions about who deserves your
loyalty.
Source: Photo from Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

You oversee public relations for Freedonia’s largest employer, the National Paper
Corp. (NPC). You have access to the company’s immediate and long-range plans.
You are at the meeting where top managers decide that economic conditions have
made it necessary to permanently close NPC’s Freedonia plant and cut 3,000 jobs.
Factors include a glut of inexpensive, imported paper products, which is diminish-
ing the market for NPC’s products, plus the government’s insistence that the plant’s
60-year-old production processes pose environmental hazards that will cost too
much to remedy.
Freedonia is in a sensitive economic position. It has few job possibilities for the
plant’s soon-to-be unemployed workers, who probably would have to sell their houses
and move.
The region was primarily agricultural before World War II, with only a moderate
amount of manufacturing. After the war, the NPC plant’s growth changed the eco-
nomic balance. The children of farmers developed skills in fields related to the plant,
and numerous family farms were consolidated into several larger farms, offering far
 Chapter 1: Ethics and Moral Reasoning 27

fewer employment possibilities. The plant has paid decent wages, and most of its
workers own homes in or around Freedonia.
You are a single parent with two children. You own your own home. Your sister is
a real estate agent and excited about having five “hot” prospects for house sales in
town; the deals should go through in about three weeks. Your sister’s husband has
worked at NPC for 15 years and now has a high-paying job as a shift foreman. They
have been very close to you, especially since your spouse died in an industrial acci-
dent at the NPC plant.
At the meeting where managers decide to close the plant, arguments are made that
any premature disclosure about the closing plan would deeply hurt the company. It
would damage NPC’s reputation, make it harder to fill a final set of orders for one last
major contract, and damage the company’s stock price. Everyone at the meeting is
asked to promise not to say anything to anyone about the closure, and to do nothing
to trigger rumors that could set off a panic.
NPC managers told you they would make every effort to find a similar job for you at
another division of the parent corporation, in an out-of-state location. Your boss reminds
you of how well the company treated you after your spouse died: You had quickly jumped
from an entry-level job to public relations assistant to public relations officer.

What’s Your Problem?

Has management placed you in an untenable position, or is this a routine PR dilemma

that requires a routine PR solution? At what point, in what way, and to whom could/
should you speak out? Are you being asked to deceive others? Are you a powerless
“decision taker” or an empowered “decision maker”? To whom should you remain
most loyal? Why?

Thinking About the Cases

Listen closely to your own arguments, and to those of people around you, as you think
through those cases. In each case, ask and answer:

 What’s the central problem? To what extent is this a moral dilemma, or not?
 What variables are people focusing on? Are they the same variables that concern you?
 What are your initial perspectives, your first set of conclusions? How quickly did you
reach any conclusions? On what were they based? (Don’t be surprised if your first response
is a “gut-level” or visceral response, deeply rooted in your own experiences or values.)
 How do you react when you hear others reach very different conclusions? Does it cause
you to defend your initial conclusions strongly, or to become more open to alternatives?
 Are you comfortable having to say, “I don’t know”?
 In both cases, we used “you” as the person facing the ethical situation. Might your deci-
sions be different if you were someone else affected by the decision?

Elsewhere in this book, we discuss such topics as professional and moral values, loyalty,
privacy, truth telling, credibility, accountability, moral development, and various schools
28 The First Question

Box 1.1 A Prefix Guide for the Word “Moral”

A variety of prefixes go with the word “moral,” the term related to human actions
that society determines are good or bad, right or wrong, evil or not. Here are some of
those prefixes and how they are defined for this book:

 Amoral: The term related to someone who lacks a sense of morality, or otherwise
doesn’t know about the rightness or wrongness of an action. The question is whether
people are born that way, or through habit or “training” somehow move to becoming
amoral.
 Immoral: An action that is inconsistent with moral law. It could describe a person
who is morally evil or unprincipled.
 Non-moral: Something not related to morality. It could describe a character trait
without moral relevance (such as enjoying or not enjoying the taste of a carrot), or
an action without moral consequences. Some actions can be non-moral even if they
have consequences, if those actions occur by accident. Example: A non-moral action
might be accidentally hitting a parked car that you didn’t see while backing up. But
it would be immoral to hit and run, or to purposefully hit that car because you did
not like the car’s owner.

of philosophy. We’ll refer to these initial case studies throughout the book. At this point,
however, just jot down the key ideas or arguments that you and your colleagues expressed
while defining and attempting to resolve the problems. Later, when you have studied the
variables in more detail, you might want to revisit—and rethink—your and your colleagues’
initial perspectives. Weeks from now, you might change your mind about what you would
do if you had the opportunity to turn a profit on your website and what it would mean to
the merchants and consumers of freedonialive.com, and what you should have done as a PR
practitioner (and parent, sister, and member of the larger community). On the other hand,
you might have the exact same set of conclusions, but our bet (and hope) is that you use a
different set of criteria to reach them!
At this point, we should define some key terms. Identifying the moral or ethical problem
is the essential first step in doing ethics, but the entire journey demands a detailed map of
the territory.

Defining Ethics and Morality

Students asked to define ethics and morality usually say these subjects deal with human
values and conscience; creating and using standards agreed upon by particular groups
of people; clearly defining legal and illegal, making choices between two troublesome
options; decisions about whether to go against the norm or even break a law for a greater
good; and clashes among competing core principles. These are good starts to thinking
about complex ideas.
Philosophers and other scholars have struggled for millennia to define ethics and morality,
and to distinguish between the two. They know the term:
 Chapter 1: Ethics and Moral Reasoning 29
 “Ethics” comes from the Greek “ethos,” meaning character, or what a good person is or
does to have a good character. In general, ethics deals with decision making; it deals with
good and bad, right and wrong. In the original Greek, “ethos” meant “dwelling” or “stall.”
That suggests the stability and security a person needs to act at all. The term at first referred
to animals, not to humans. Thus the germinal idea in the word “ethos” is the stability and
security provided by a “stall” or “dwelling” for animals.
The verb root of ethics, in Greek, was “iotha,” which means to “be accustomed to.” There
is a relationship between stability and custom. For humans, our customs serve the same
purposes as stalls do for animals: They provide security and stability. Ethics, according to
Diogenes, is concerned with the foundations of human behavior.
 “Morality” is often used interchangeably with ethics, although philosophers maintain the
words emerge from different traditions and have subtle distinctions. Some see ethics as the
foundations of human behavior, and morality as the actual practice or behavior on these
foundations. Morality is of Latin origin, not Greek; it referred to how people behaved—
their “customary” behavior.

Figure 1.3 Let the giraffe remind you that “ethics” is more about thinking and “morality” is more about
doing. Still, many people use the terms interchangeably.
Source: Abby Broussard design/Chris Roberts photo
30 The First Question
Given this distinction, “morality” describes behavior based on custom; “ethics” describes
behavior according to moral philosophy, reason, or reflection upon the foundations and
principles of behavior. (One way to remember the difference is to think of ethics as behavior
that occurs above the neck, and morality as behavior that occurs below the neck!)
As a practical matter, media ethics and other practical arenas overlap between ethics and
morality. This book does not obsess about the distinctions, because both terms are con-
cerned with the cement of human society that provides the connections and security we
need to flourish. When applied to media, practitioners might ask and try to answer funda-
mental questions about how they fit into society:

What are we—as believers in the precepts of [insert your mass communication disci-
pline here]—to do? What are our obligations? To whom are we accountable? What are
the consequences of doing a good job, or a poor one?

The answers are complex, as is the route we take to find those answers.
Writers have crafted an array of definitions of ethics and morality, and some are more
helpful than others. Consider these:

 The philosophical investigation of the principles governing human actions in terms of

their goodness, badness, rightness, and wrongness (Borchert & Stewart, 1979). The “method
of ethics” is how people determine what humans “ ‘ought’—or what it is ‘right’ for them—
to do, or to seek to realize by voluntary action” (Sidgwick, 1907, p. 1).
 It is normal to think about ethical issues not only in terms of right behavior, but also in
terms of appropriate feelings, attitudinal responses, and ways of being. We urge the person
to be a certain way, not just to do something. This raises questions of virtue and character
(Lebacqz, 1985).
 Ethics is obedience to the unenforceable (Moulton (1924), cited in Kidder, 1995). Eng-
lish jurist J.F. Mouton said people should live beyond legal requirements enforced by gov-
ernment but not live in absolute freedom. Instead, they should choose a domain where
they make decisions based upon “the domain of Duty . . . Public Spirit . . . Good Form.”
Those three have “the same characteristic throughout—it is the domain of Obedience to the
Unenforceable. The obedience is the obedience of a man to that which he cannot be forced
to obey. He is the enforcer of the law upon himself ” (Moulton, 1924, p. 2). His example
was “women and children first” from the Titanic disaster of 1912, which is not maritime law
but instead an ideal. Restated in non-gendered ethical terms, this means helping vulnerable
people first in difficult circumstances, even when it is not the law.
 Ethics is a branch of philosophy. It uses critical thinking skills and systematic approaches
to consider what people and societies consider moral, how moral problems are defined, and
how to make judgments about morality. It forces us to move beyond rules provided by oth-
ers and to make our own moral judgments—and live them out.

Moral philosophy arises when, like Socrates, we pass beyond the stage in which we
are directed by traditional rules and even beyond the stage in which these rules are so
internalized that we can be said to be inner-directed, to the stage in which we think
for ourselves in critical and general terms . . . and achieve a kind of autonomy as moral
agents.

(Frankena, 1973, p. 4)
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Miss Con
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Miss Con

Author: Agnes Giberne

Illustrator: Edgar Giberne

Release date: April 13, 2024 [eBook #73389]

Language: English

Original publication: London: James Nisbet & Co., Limited, 1887

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS CON

***
 Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is
as printed.

I sat long by the lesser hole. Frontispiece.

 MISS CON

BY

AGNES GIBERNE

AUTHOR OF "SUN, MOON AND STARS," "BERYL AND PEARL,"

"ST. AUSTIN'S LODGE," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY EDGAR GIBERNE

"Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,

Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise
To higher levels rise."—LONGFELLOW.

NINTH THOUSAND
 London

JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED

22 BERNERS STREET, W.

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

PREFACE.

I DO not think I need apologise for sending out another

tale about girls and for girls—a tale of everyday life, such as
numerous everyday girls in this Nineteenth Century have to
live. There may be already a legion of books belonging,
more or less, to the same class; but the omnivorous
appetite of modern girlhood is not yet satisfied.

Nor, perhaps, need I apologise for its being in some

measure a story about and for young Authoresses, incipient
or developed. So many girls now crowd the lower rungs of
literary ladders, that a few general hints for their guidance
can hardly fail to be useful in one quarter or another.

It must not, however, be supposed that "All Those Girls"

were would-be Authoresses!
 CONTENTS.

CHAP.

I. CRAVEN'S SENTIMENTS

II. AND CONSTANCE CONWAY'S

III. HOW DIAMONDS FLASH

IV. RAILWAY IMAGININGS

V. A "PRICELESS PRIVILEGE" REALISED

VI. A MOTHER'S SWANS

VII. THYRZA'S SANCTUM

VIII. "MILLIE"

IX. THE QUESTION OF ABBREVIATIONS

X. PLENTY OF "ER"

XI. JUVENILE AUTHORSHIP

XII. AND MAGGIE'S EFFORTS

XIII. LETTERS—VARIOUS

XIV. SUBLIMITY AND MAGGIE

XV. THAT PUBLISHER!!

XVI. WHETHER SOMEBODY LIKED SOMEBODY?

XVII. GLADYS HEPBURN'S FIRST SUCCESSES

XVIII. SERIOUS NEWS

XIX. A MOUNTAIN STATION

XX. AND A YORKSHIRE DALE

XXI. THROUGH A STORM

XXII. MYSTERIOUS HOLES

XXIII. "INDEED!"

XXIV. UNPALATABLE ADVICE

XXV. ALONE IN GURGLEPOOL

XXVI. AUTHORSHIP—WHETHER? AND HOW?

XXVII. ELFIE'S CONFESSION

XXVIII. NON-RAPTURES

XXIX. AND YET!

XXX. A REAL FIVE-SHILLING BOOK

XXXI. CROOKED AND STRAIGHT

XXXII. VERY UNEXPECTED

XXXIII. CONFIDENTIAL IN A CAVE

XXXIV. DIFFERENCES OF VIEW

 XXXV. ENTIRELY VANISHED

XXXVI. AND HE!

MISS CON.

CHAPTER I.
CRAVEN'S SENTIMENTS.

CONSTANCE CONWAY'S JOURNAL.

February 20.

"THE very thing for you, Constance. Most satisfactory.

Really, if we had—a—if we had hunted all England over, we
could not—ahem—could not have hoped to find anything
more suitable. Positively, it is, if I may so say—if I may
venture to use a somewhat time-worn illustration—the
fitting of a round man into a round hole,—a round woman, I
should rather say,—ha, ha! Nothing better could be
desired."

So Craven declared, about ten days ago, with that oily

satisfaction which people are sometimes apt to show about
a convenient arrangement for somebody else. If I decided
to go to the Romillys, it would be particularly convenient for
Craven. I had been a full month in his house, and he was
beginning to favour me with plain hints that a month was
enough. Albinia never ventures to oppose him.

"Just the very thing," he repeated, rubbing his big

flabby hands together. He might be a handsome man, this
brother-in-law of mine, if less ponderously rotund, and
boasting a smaller allowance of cheek and chin. I could not
help thinking that afternoon, as he lounged back in his
study-chair, what a huge individual he is for his fifty years.
Anybody might take him for sixty.

I have not written in my journal for many months. Time

enough now to make a fresh start. The only way is to go
straight ahead, letting alone arrears and explanations.

"Precisely the opening for you," he went on. "Really,

your course is, if I may so say, plain as daylight. As I say,
plain as daylight. I am most happy to have been the means
of affording you—ahem—a shelter, until this—a temporary
shelter, I should say,—until this opening should appear."

Craven, like many other speech-makers, indulges in

broken sentences and needless repetitions.

"Not merely an opening, but a duty,—a positive call to

duty. I have always held the opinion—always, I may say,—
that you were by nature fitted—peculiarly fitted—for the
work of teaching. In fact—a—that you were a first-rate
instructress of youth thrown away,—pardon me! And really,
after the monotony of your existence—a—with the worthy
old lady who has been—ahem—has been so lately removed
from our midst,—after the monotony of your existence, as I
say, hitherto,—you will find—ahem—will find positive
excitement, positive dissipation—a—in the surroundings of
your new life with the Romilly circle."

Craven ought to have felt exhausted by this time. If he

did not, I did.

"Supposing I go," I answered perversely. Craven always

rouses the perverse element in me.

"I was not aware that—ahem—that any other opening

had—a—had presented itself, my dear Constance."

"I don't wish to decide in a hurry," I replied, though I

knew as well as did Craven, that the matter was already
practically settled. "Besides," I added, "it is not generally
supposed that a governess' life means too much dissipation.
Too much work is more likely."

For I did and do think that Craven might be a little less

willing to let me enter on a life of possible or probable
drudgery. Not that I want pity, or that I believe in the need
for real drudgery in anybody's life. Plenty to do is my
delight, and the question of drudgery depends on the spirit
in which one does things. Moreover, I have never expected
Craven to offer me a home; and if he made the offer, I
would not accept it.

Still one does like a man to act a consistent part.

Craven has in his own person so ardent a love for ease and
non-exertion, that from his standpoint, he ought justly to
spare me some grains of pity. My protest only set him off
afresh, however.

"There can be no question, my dear Constance,—ahem

—that your post will be a light one. At the same time, it will
afford you—a—will offer precisely such a sphere for your
talents as you—ahem—will offer, in fact, an appropriate
sphere for your talents. For I see no harm in admitting—a—
no harm in admitting that you are possessed of certain
talents. Here, for the first time in your life,—as I say, for the
first time in your life,—here is a field for their exercise. Not
in mere lesson-giving, but in the exercise of—a—the
exercise of—ahem—the exercise of a mild and beneficent
and improving influence on all around you."

"Am I to begin by improving Mr. Romilly?" I asked.

The laboured and monotonous utterances sounded so

exactly like a third-rate platform speech, that my gravity
was upset. I had to say something which might serve as an
excuse for a laugh.

Craven did not smile. He lifted one broad hand

silencingly.

"In the shaping—ahem—the moulding—ahem—the

general improvement, as I say, of those young people who
will be in your charge. A more delightful occupation could—
a—could scarcely be found. There can be no hesitation
whatever—I say, there can be no hesitation whatever in
pronouncing that you, my dear little sister, are by nature—a
—singularly adapted for the post." Craven always calls me
"little" when he wants to give me a set-down, though really
I am almost as tall as himself. To be sure, I am not so
broad!

"That is the question," I said. "If I could be sure that I

really am fitted—But the responsibilities will be immense. If
I were a woman of forty, instead of a girl not twenty-three
—"

"With the appearance of—a—of thirty at least," asserted

Craven.
 There might be some truth in this. Twice in the month
before, I had been taken for Albinia's twin. But also I had
been twice taken for only eighteen years old. So much
depends on the mood one is in.

"If I could be sure that I am fitted," I said again, rather

rashly inviting a further flow of speech.

"Adapted undoubtedly, I should say," Craven answered.

He drummed his right hand solemnly on the chair-arm, by
way of emphasis. "Unquestionably! For you have gifts, my
dear sister,—I may say that you have gifts. You are clever,—
ahem—intellectual,—ahem—and you have cultivated your
intellect. You are well-read. You draw and paint,—really
quite tolerably. Yes, I may say—a—quite tolerably. Your
music is, on the whole—on the whole, above the average."

Craven's knowledge of music is rather less than that of

his favourite puppy, but this only makes it the easier for
him to pass judgment.

"You have—" he went on—"you have your faults also:

who has not? A certain impetuosity; somewhat too good an
opinion of yourself; an over-readiness to oppose your views
to those of others; these defects have—ahem—have to be
subdued. But again there are faults which in your new
position—which, I may say, in your new position will be—a—
transformed into virtues! For instance! A certain faculty for
spying out others' weaknesses—ahem—a somewhat
unenviable readiness to set others to rights—pardon the
suggestion, my dear little sister! But the adaptability of
things is remarkable—is really, I may say, most remarkable.
For henceforth the business of your life will be—the leading
aim of your existence will be—a—the setting of others to
rights a—the correction of others' faults. Thus, as I may
say, as in fact I have already observed—a—thus at least one
faulty tendency glides into a positive virtue."

My impetuosity came, I suppose, into play here. I felt

all at once that I had endured as much as could reasonably
be expected.

"Have you done, Craven?" I asked, standing up.

Craven was astonished. Probably he had not done; but

my sudden movement disturbed the beautiful orderliness of
his ideas, and put the remainder of his speech to flight.

"Because I think our discussion has lasted long

enough," I said. "I will write to Mrs. Romilly by this
evening's post, and promise to be at Glynde House in a
fortnight."

Craven rose slowly and examined the framed almanack.

We were together in the library, whither he had summoned
me on my return from an afternoon stroll in the park.

"Nothing keeps Con indoors," Albinia is wont to declare,

and certainly that day's fog had not sufficed to do so.

"A fortnight from to-day," he said dubiously. "That

brings us to—the twenty-fifth. Yes; if I am not mistaken—
the twenty-fifth."

"Mrs. Romilly names the twenty-fifth," I said. "I cannot

offer to go sooner. It is unfortunate; but she does not leave
England for another week; and she wishes me to arrive a
week later. I am afraid you will have to put up with me so
long."

Without waiting for an answer, I passed out of the

luxurious library into the spacious hall.
 CHAPTER II.
AND CONSTANCE CONWAY'S.

THE SAME—continued.

February 21.

ALBINIA has a comfortable home,—so far as carpets

and curtains are concerned. If only that mountain of human
pomposity were not appended! But then she need never
have accepted him unless she wished. Albinia went in for
the man, with the carpets and curtains, of her own free-will.

Of course it is pleasant to be comfortable. I should be

the last to deny that fact. Velvet-piled carpets, into which
the foot sinks as into moss, are superior to bare boards;
and tapestry at twelve or fifteen shillings the yard is very
much nicer than a cheap cretonne at twelve or fifteen
pence. Still a good deal depends on how much may be
involved in the possession of mossy carpets and rich
tapestry.

Sometimes I find myself wondering whether, if ten

years ago could come over again, Albinia would say "Yes" a
second time. She was only twenty then, and he was by no
means so portly as now. But Craven Smyth was Craven
Smyth always. He never could be anything else. He
managed invariably to excite naughty feelings in me,
though I was a child under twelve. Albinia could not
understand why. She used to say he was "so nice!"—That
delightfully indefinite term which does quite as well for a
man as for a cretonne. And her one hesitation seemed to be
on the score of his surname. "To think of becoming Mrs.
Smyth!" she remarked often.

After leaving the library, I lingered in the hall, thinking.

Should I write my letter first, or speak to Albinia first? Time
enough for both before I needed to dress for dinner. The
latter seemed right, so I passed on into the drawing-room,
with its costly furniture and superabundant gilding.

Not four days had gone by since I first heard of this

"desirable opening" in the Romilly household. I had
answered the earliest appeal by return of post, asking
further particulars, and expressing strong doubts as to my
own capacity. A letter had now arrived from Mrs. Romilly
herself, urging, nay, imploring me to accept the position.

Had the request come from any one else except Mrs.
Romilly, I must have unhesitatingly declined. For whatever
Craven may say, I am not fitted for the post. I, a girl of
twenty-two, unused to teaching, inexperienced in family
life,—I to undertake so anomalous and difficult a task! The
very idea seems to me wild, even foolish. Humanly
speaking, I court only failure by consenting to go!

And yet—what if it is indeed the right thing for me? For

all along it has appeared as if that were the one open path;
as if all other paths were hedged up and shut. Any one else
except Mrs. Romilly! Yes; that would make all the
difference. But then, it is Mrs. Romilly! And she is ill,
depressed, troubled, in difficulties, and she implores my
help. How can I hesitate or think of self?
 I have no other friend in the world like Mrs. Romilly. Not
that we have been so very much together; but I think I fell
in love with her at first sight, and the love has gone on
growing ever since, steadily. Three times, at intervals, she
has spent a month with an aged relative in Bath,—an
acquaintance of Aunt Lavinia's and mine,—and each time
we met as often as possible. We walked and drove
together; read and sang together; went often to the Abbey
Church together. I can talk freely to her, as I have never
talked with any other human being; and she is no less free
with me. She has often said that I helped her; and this
seemed strange, because she has so often helped me.

Sweet Gertrude Romilly! I have never met with any one

else quite like her; and I doubt if I ever shall. She is twenty
years my senior; yet I do not think we have found disparity
of age any bar to friendship. It would be unreasonable to
suppose that I am as much to her as she is to me. She is so
lovely, so beloved; and she has so many who are very near
and dear to her, while I have but few. But, indeed, I find the
love that she gives to me very full and satisfying.

I suppose her spirits in girlhood must have been

wonderfully high. She has gone through much trouble, and
has suffered under it most acutely; and notwithstanding all,
she seems often to be just rippling over with happiness and
fun. I never quite know whether to count her more winning
in her gay or in her pensive moods.

During the three years since our acquaintance first

began, Mrs. Romilly and I have corresponded regularly; and
she has pressed me often to pay her a visit at Glynde
House. But I have never felt that I could rightly leave poor
Aunt Lavinia, since she grew so very infirm.
 Now that my dear old aunt has been taken from me,
things are changed. It did seem strange for a while that no
word of sympathy came from Glynde House. The response
has always been so quick, if I were in any trouble. But a few
lines from the eldest daughter, Nellie, with a dictated
message from my friend, soon let me know the cause.

I cannot now understand precisely what is wrong. Mrs.

Romilly has broken down in health, though to what extent I
do not know. A sudden attack on her chest has revealed a
condition of things there, unsuspected before; and she is
ordered off in haste to the south of Europe before March
winds begin. That is not all, however. Nellie alludes to "the
state of her nerves;" and it seems to be expected that she
may have to remain many months away,—perhaps a great
part of the summer. Nellie goes in charge of the invalid, and
Mr. Romilly remains behind.

In the midst of these anxieties, another blow has fallen.

The governess, Miss Jackson, who for fifteen years has lived
with the Romillys, was summoned home to the bedside of a
dying mother just before Mrs. Romilly's illness. After weeks
of absence she wrote, unexpectedly, to plead the claims of a
widowed father, begging to be if possible at once released.
The claim could hardly be disallowed, and no difficulties
have been made. But then it was that Mrs. Romilly turned
to the thought of me. She knew of my plans for self-
support. Would I, she asked, step into the vacant post, and
be—not merely governess, but companion, caretaker, elder
sister, guide, and friend to her darling girls?

The first letter on this topic was dictated, but the

second was in her own hand,—so changed and feeble a
hand, that it grieved my very heart,—pleading earnestly.
Would I—could I—refuse to set her mind at rest?
 No, I could not; and were the moment of decision to
come over again, I feel that my reply would be the same. I
could not refuse; even though the sense of incapacity
weighed then and weighs still most heavily. I am not old
enough or experienced enough for the position. Yet it did
seem to me then, and it seems so still, that I have no
choice.

CHAPTER III.
HOW DIAMONDS FLASH!

THE SAME.

February 24.

I MUST take up the thread where I left off three days

ago. The last evening in Albinia's house has come, and to-
morrow I make my plunge into a new life. It is late, and I
have been busy; but there is much to think about, and
sleep looks impossible at present. As well sit up and write,
as toss to and fro in the dark.

Albinia was seated near the drawing-room fire when I

went in, reading a little, or working a little, I can't say
which. She is always doing a little of something, which ends
in nothing. Perhaps she was working, for I noticed the flash
of her diamond rings as she moved her hands.