Ethical Dilemmas : Lim Ing (03)

Introduction

Hey, I am Lim Ing and today I’ll be talking about a few Ethical Dilemmas,Plagiarism, Bias and Anonymous Sources, that are commonly faced by journalists.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is claiming one’s work as your own, taking without crediting. Its like stealing from someone. To avoid plagiarism, we should credit the authors we ‘borrow’ the materials from. This also includes downloading pictures or videos used in your work without permission. For example, if I am writing a report on the importance of history, and I google ‘why study history’, click on the first link, copy a few paragraphs from the site and paste it into my report without crediting the author or stating my source. It’s plagiarism. Lets say I drag a few pictures off another site and drop it into my report. Still plagiarism. Although plagiarism is a crime, most people do it anyway. It’s not rare for others not to care about it too. But if caught, one could lose their good reputation or may have to pay monetary penalties. Personally, I think plagiarism is a violation of Journalistic Ethics and should be avoided totally.

Bias

To be biased is to prefer or favor something. No one can be totally neutral so being biased is not an uncommon thing. For journalists, one must be as objective as possible on writing articles especially if it is on political issues. They must attempt to be as fair and impartial as possible but also should not avoid exploration and variety in the press. To every issue there are more than one side, and all sides should be represented fairly. Being biased is like writing an article about a competition and making the team you don’t support look bad because maybe you don’t like them or for other personal issues. It is vital in my opinion to try and avoid being biased but as I have said earlier, no one can be completely objective and have no preferences at all.

Anonymous Sources

Lastly, we have Anonymous Sources. It is not wrong to interview or use material from Anonymous Sources in journalism. Anonymous Sources can also be a vital source of information depending on the situations. But there are reasons why people do not want their name or title in articles or reports. It could be because they are shy or want to protect their identity, but think again. Maybe what they are saying is fake, so as a journalist, one must find more supporting information from other sources to confirm any story. For example if there is murder case and you are finding out about the details as to what actually happened. You come across a supposed friend of the victim who tells you who he or she suspects and tells you not to state his name. To confirm this information you should go to another source so that the information you have is reliable and accurate.

Conclusion

That’s all from me today, thank you for your attention!