The Laws and Ethics behind Journalism

This week's topic regarding the legal and ethical dilemma's surrounding journalism was both interesting and heavily debated. Edward Spence (2005:3) stated that ethics are ‘a set of prescriptive rules, principles, values and virtues of character that inform and guide interpersonal and intrapersonal conduct: that is the conduct of people toward each other and the conduct of people toward themselves.” Each person will make different ethical choices during their career. When discussing recent events that have been published, it became obvious that ethics, just as much as legal reasoning, must be taken into account firstly.

Examples we discussed in class were issues like Milton Orkopolous, Minister for the Labor Party back in 2005, having his private life and secrets exposed to the public. The ethical reasoning behind publishing such as story which would undoubtably ruin his reputation and career were highly founded. Those reasons behing that charges were made, and later he was sentenced, regarding child sex offences and drug offences. During discussions, ethical reasoning was that it was in the public's interest because he was an authority figure and leader and his behaviour was not up to par with his responsibilities. Also the nature of his crimes were deamed necessary public information.

Other issues we discussed were not so ethically sound. For example, Tania Zaetta has recently settled a lawsuit against the owners of the Daily Telegraph for wrongly publishing "Defence gossip". The accusations against Zaetta were not in the public's interest, were unfounded and predominantly sexist. The argument was made that if a male performer had sexual relations with a female troop, the story would not have been published.
Thus ethical reasoning is necessary and can lead one out of legal harm.