where in the world is she? #comms239

That was the name of my case study. My case study really got me fired up. Here's the summary: A news station did a 10-part series on the Holy Week. They had footage from the Holy Land from JANUARY and the story aired in MARCH. That's three months folks. I understand the concept of as-live.. But that's usually a difference of a few minutes. If you ask me, there is a large difference between a few minutes and three months. But it wasn't just this.. It was the stations clear intent to deceive. On respectable stations like CNN, the date the shot was shot shows up in large font on the screen, at the time of the shot... There is no question. The station in my scenario flashed some small print up at the end. Not only that, but the newscasters went along with this and made it sound like the shots were live.. That's intent to deceive, people, and it is not ethical.

With my group, this is the point I tried to drive home. I would much rather watch a news show that was up front with me and said.. "We couldn't make it to the Holy Land this week, but we're showing some footage from an earlier trip." Than a station that was intending to deceive me.

The principle I found most prevalent in my case study and from the list of ten questions was probably.. What is the purpose of this reporting? To us, the purpose of it was to deceive.. Was to look good, save face, and get ratings. All of those intents are unethical.

Also I thought a lot about The golden rule. I don't think this station would want to be deceived in the fashion that they were deceiving.. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I found our case to be very unethical and I vow as a journalist to never participate in something like my case.