Why do media ethics & law matter? This episode answers that question.

Hi. I'm John Pavlik. A professor of journalism & media studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. One of the courses I teach is media ethics and law. And in this episode let’s talk about why media ethics & law matter. And they do matter very much. Perhaps more than ever.

Put simply, we learn about media ethics & law to help guide us to do the right thing. Many situations we confront in journalism and media contain ethical and legal challenges, and sometimes we may not even realize it at the time. A reporter asking a question, or choosing a word or editing a video, or a media manager making a hiring decision, or casting a tv show or movie. Any of these choices or decisions may have a moral or legal dimension. Does the word choice or video edit convey the truth? Might we be committing libel? Are we building a more diverse newsroom staff? Will the casting choices help to make the show more inclusive?

And there is another way to think about media ethics & law, a more theoretical way. It’s about the pyramid of knowledge and wisdom. As journalists and media professionals we often focus much of our work on gathering the facts, the basic building blocks of information, ensuring their accuracy. Then, we sort those facts, the data, into meaningful patterns that help tell a story and build understanding. We put the facts into context and give them meaning. This is the beginning of knowledge. Finally, and this is where ethics and law are particularly salient. We turn knowledge into wisdom by adding or applying our understanding of ethics and law. Guided by ethics and law, Wisdom is the enduring insight that enables us, as journalists and media professionals or media consumers, to act in a moral manner or to make the right choices across time, and place and situation. Such wisdom is critically important in the complex and fast changing world in which we live and work as journalists and media professionals or even as consumers of news and media and in which we act as citizens.

I hope you find the exploration into the realm of media ethics and law an exciting and meaningful journey. I look forward to getting to know you and your work and learning about what you think of media ethics and law.

Thanks for listening.