3 Ethical Dilemmas - Tan Ming Chuan

Hey, I'm Ming Chuan from 2-03, and I'm here today to share with you three of the most important ethical dilemmas faced by journalists.

FIrst off, we have Conflict of Interest. This is one of the major dilemmas due to the fact that when the Journalists interest is conflicted, he or she may not write the article from a neutral point of view. Or maybe you are interviewing someone who has, maybe bullied your younger brother of sister? Instead of writing "The bully said he was truly sorry for his actions", a Journalist with conflicted interests might twist it to become "The bully showed no remorse for his actions"

The above dilemma can relate to the next point, being biased. A certain Journalist may stand by his or her moral values of maybe, respect. Thus, when he or she writes an article on for example, children who leave their parents in an elderly home, instead of taking care of them. The Journalist would have very strong feelings against such people, which will overall affect the Journalist's article in a large way.

The last ethical dilemma i will be talking about involves offensive or distasteful content. This does not happen often, but when it does, it becomes a very big issue. Maybe the journalist is unhappy with the fact that there are many foreigners around his or her area. So, when writing an article about foreigners, the journalist may use his personal experiences with foreigners for example, smoking and throwing cigarette butts on the floor. However, when the journalist does this, he tends to not say it is an isolated case, resulting in many readers thinking he meant that most, or even all foreigners do it. This could lead to disputes between the foreigners and the journalist, and could even blow up on the internet, causing an uproar.

I think that these three dilemmas are the most commonly faced by journalists, yet these problems cannot be solved.

Thank you for listening!