Media Law & Ethics Discussion

Part I: Media and Journalism 

Part a 

Journalists have numerous sources of news and stories concerning everything that influences human living. These stories could either be unexpectedly new, like disasters and disease outbreaks, or information about daily events, which journalists have to seek from communities, institutions, law courts, government agencies, scientific journals, and businesses. The critical role of media and journalism is to distribute these stories and news to media participants, which can be achieved through traditional media such as billboards and print adverts or trending social media such as online ads and search engines. There are over fifty news websites on the web for distributing media content to its residents in the UAE. 

As a journalist, I use both traditional and trending social media sources. I chose these sources due to the need to have reliable stories. My traditional sources are highly reliable and enable me to get original stories. There are various reasons why I prefer traditional sources. First, they are reliable and accurate; as a journalist, I must provide reliable and credible news. Traditional sources have highly reliable news. Additionally, traditional sources have accurate news and are highly objective. Accuracy is critical in journalism; all facts and information I acquire and broadcast must be very accurate and objective. This helps in reducing bias and misleading the audience. 

Besides traditional media sources, I sometimes rely on trending social media to get news. Although social media sources may be highly unreliable at times, they act as a good source of news to journalism. I chose to use these sources due to the large copious amount; the information available online is plenty. Additionally, social media trends often help me to access news in time, as they are real-time; trending news helps me identify the hot topic depending on its following, thereby providing me with new and hot stories to cover as news. 

Part b 

The reliability of traditional media is very high, while trending social media sources may be highly unreliable. The fundamental aspects of media ethics and reliability are professional conduct, truth, and morality. Since traditional sources, such as other reliable news outlets, are my major sources, I evaluate their credibility and reliability by cross-checking the reliability of the information. Cross-checking involves analyzing the news and tracking its timeline, accuracy, context, and fairness. I also use a third party editor to identify if a story is reliable and usable. Double-checking the reliability of news and stories both in traditional and trending social media has enabled me to report highly reliable news free from bias. 

Part c 

To safeguard the truth of media content, media participants have various ethical responsibilities to consider. In this case, media participants include the government, business, consumers, students, and ordinary citizens who should work together to fight fake news and sophisticated disinformation campaigns. The government should, therefore, support news literacy to improve journalism activities in society ( Popescu, 2020 ). Hence, there should be agents of disinformation to distill journalism's quality, ensuring that news industries that do not build trust in spreading information. Besides, the technological sector should invest in devices that recognize disinformation and misinformation and reduce financial incentives that drive news companies to tell lies. Learning institutions should prioritize to inform people about news illiteracy. Individuals should consider and follow news sources' diversity to determine the origin of media content presented to them. Moreover, people should read, listen, and watch news and stories with a skeptical mindset. For instance, over the past decades, news media landscape has shifted in online access to news, where people might not differentiate between trusted media news and friends' commentary. Therefore, it is ethical for people to track an extended source of information. 

Part II: Government and Media Systems 

Part a 

Journalism is about reporting issues that affect society in one way or the other. Therefore, there should be freedom of the press, as it would be reinforcing the freedom of speech. The right to speech is an aspect to be respected by an individual's colleagues and the government. Therefore, regulating media will directly or indirectly remove the right to enter the media platforms, which is against the right to speech. Furthermore, some large media platforms will disintegrate due to excluding all alternatives speakers in those platforms. As a matter of fact, most dominant news companies draw their market power through their rights to speech; for instance, some media aim at entertaining their customers. Some stories are interestingly entertaining but investigating their truthiness in them is tedious; hence social media might use them to create humor rather than informing people. In such a case, it is the reader or watcher's responsibility to avoid being misled and not necessarily government intervention. Generally, news platforms support societal values, whereby they criticize bad characteristics such as corruption and reporting sudden occurrences of calamities. Besides, most information on traditional or digital media is open for comments and discussions, making it easy for media participants to trace the content's trustworthiness. Moreover, through these discussions, information sharing creates a sense of membership in the distributed society. 

While some people complain that Google is biased against the conservation of traditional values in the UAE, others argue that Google and Facebook are monopolistic by restricting conservative talk. Many people around the world complain that social media fosters elections violence and indiscriminate chaos. In addition, while supporting government regulations to social, activists complain that the news industry precludes democratic deliberation through filter bubbles. However, in my opinion, these pieces of evidence are not strong. First, the constitution contains compatible remedies towards filter bubbles, whereby the constitution circumscribes any empirical proof of information cocoons, warranting all intense worries concerning filter bubbles. Second, the election exercise is practiced under democratic reigns, suggesting that election-related violence results from people's failure to accept defeat. Moreover, in ancient days when social media did not participate in leadership determination, the battle was still dominant among many societies. Following the research studies done in the past, governments' attempts to regulate media companies have supported the monopolistic media market rather than mitigating them. Therefore, prohibiting fake news harms lies beyond government jurisdiction, and tech firms are determined to prevent the occurrence of such damages without or with negligible government intervention. In my opinion, the government should not regulate social media companies. 

Part b 

For journalists to be socially responsible, they must adhere to their editorial guidelines and code of ethics. There are five key editorial guidelines, which are reporting the truth, getting all the facts right, being independent, being transparent, being transparent, and being accountable. Although these guidelines form the bedrock of journalism, the audiences hyper-networked, expanding technological and innovative ways of news distribution. As a result, journalists have these advancements as disinformation agents to track down mistakes related to fake news; hence, they can correct where possible ( Sedorkin et al., 2020) . Regardless of the polluted media ecosystem, responsible reporting ensures that journalists are obligated to impact their work on readers, subjects, and sources. Additionally, journalists should be accountable for the consequences of what they distribute, whether published or not, since it has an amplification potential. Also, journalism is responsible for all pollution of the information ecosystem caused by media presentations. Therefore, by seeking ways to solve media challenges and following editorial guidelines and media codes of ethics, journalists will be considered ethically responsible. 

Part III: Ethical considerations in the media 

On the outbreak of COVID-19, journalists used related information to create headlines of news materials. The news media projects provided trends and training opportunities in many languages, creating a large media content pool. For journalists to produce quality COVID-19 reporting, they should be attentive to various ethical considerations. 

Accuracy and Truth 

Any information reported or published by a journalist must be very accurate and truthful. Considering the critical nature of COVI-19, a journalist must report news that is based on accuracy and truth since any information reported about the origin and spread of the disease widely affects the society's steps in dealing with the crisis. The response to the reports by individuals and the government is followed by rhetoric poses containing unique dilemmas ( Kojah, 2020 ). When reporters navigate the unfamiliar, they must ensure that whatever reports they give are trustworthy and can be used as stepping stones to more remarkable results and avoid misleading the society. For instance, a journalist reports that COVID-19 is spread through the air would be misleading people, which would result in panic, although their story is unreliable and based on zero evidence. Therefore, any form of misinformation or disinformation would case total loss. 

Independence 

While reporting news regarding a sensitive issue like the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that journalists provide information based on their independent voices and research. They should desist from publishing news influenced by external players. For example, it would be completely unethical for a journalist to be persuaded by the government to report fewer COVID-19 deaths while there are many deaths. This would not only be misleading the public but also a violation of journalism ethics and principles. Therefore, journalists must ensure that their stories are based on independence and should not be influenced whatsoever by anyone. 

Fairness and Impartiality 

The society relies on journalists to receive accurate and up to date information about issues in society. In this case, journalists must ensure that the news they report is based on fairness and impartiality. Regarding COVID-19, journalists must ensure that they provide news that is not biased. For example, it would be unethical to report how serious the pandemic is by only providing figures about the casualties of the disease instead of looking at both sides of the story. The report should report the casualties and the recoveries to enable the public to have a clear picture. The media should also acknowledge actions taken by the government to control the spread of the disease instead of only blasting the government for the number of casualties. 

Accountability 

Journalism should be built around accountability, which involves being responsible for errors made. When journalists commit errors, they should acknowledge that they made a mistake and should take necessary action to rectify the issue. Regarding COVID-19, a journalist may publish wrong figures about the casualties or recoveries. In such a case, they should listen to the audience's concerns and make rectifications. 

Humanity 

Journalism should be based on principles of humanity and guided by ethics. Journalists should desist from writing or publishing news intending to cause harm to an individual. In the case of COVID-19, it would be extremely wrong to consider the virus a Chinese disease and write news discriminating against the Chinese. The Chinese are friends and families in the UAE and should not be held accountable for a virus that they themselves do not understand. Journalists should consider writing and publishing news that avoids racial comments and any form of discrimination against an individual or a group regarding COVID-19 origin and spread. 

References 

Zhuang, Z., Zhao, S., Lin, Q., Cao, P., Lou, Y., Yang, L., & He, D. (2020). Preliminary estimation of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in Iran: A modelling analysis based on overseas cases and air travel data.  International Journal of Infectious Diseases ,  94 , 29-31. 

Popescu, M. M. (2020). Media Literacy Tools in Combating Disinformation and Fake News in Social Media.  Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov, Series VII: Social Sciences and Law ,  13 (1), 103-112. 

Sedorkin, G., Oakham, M., Patching, R., & Alysen, B. (2020).  Reporting in a Multimedia World: An introduction to core journalism skills . Routledge. 

Kojah, S. (2020, May). Ethical Considerations for Reporting on COVID-19.