UNIT 10: PRICIPLES OF GUD JOURNALIST

today we're going to look at the principles of good journalism

as we all know there are many different media sources
newspapers magazines tv radio the internet regardless of the
media we work in as journalists we need to think about
the underlying principles of good
journalism today I’m going to present seven
principles compiled by the committee of concerned
journalists a group of more than 7 000 journalists
from around the globe, they spent five years doing research to
get a deep understanding of what defines good journalism

first i'll go over these principles

then we'll consider them in relationship to the internet because of its growing
influence on journalism all right let's get started

principle one
journalists need to tell the truth
we need to verify facts and make clear
the sources of our information so that the public can judge for itself what
news to trust they expect us to tell the truth

principle two
journalists first obligation is to the public
not to advertisers or the owners of the
news media our job is to keep people informed
our news stories shouldn't be biased toward the political views or political
interests of the owners or sponsors

principle 3
journalists need to be independent and objective
to best do this we need to use multiple sources of information
so that we can provide accurate information and cover all sides of the story
for example
let's say the government passes stricter laws for teenage drivers
a good reporter needs to get reactions
from all sides
government officials
parents
police
teenagers
to cover the story adequately
otherwise the story may be one-sided
principle four
be watchdogs
we must provide the public with news
about important government actions that affect them
for example
a decision to raise taxes in a democracy citizens need to know
they can rely on journalists to let them know what's happening in government

that takes us to principle five

a journalist must be a good storyteller
we must ask ourselves what news is most relevant to the public and then tell our
news stories in an interesting way
the committee calls this storytelling with a purpose

principle six
every journalist needs to be honest and
have a sense of ethics and responsibility
we need to think for ourselves and take
a stand for what we believe in professionally speaking
but this is sometimes difficult to do
especially if the company we are working
for encourages or discourages coverage of a particular issue

principle 7
keep the news balanced
cover both good and bad news
in order to provide a complete picture of what's going on in the community
people want to know about terrible
crimes but also about successful literacy programs and great concerts

now i want to turn to the role of the internet

no one in journalism can dispute its 84*impact
back when i started out as a journalist there was no internet
which you probably find hard to imagine
let's look at some of the ways it has changed journalism

first is how most journalists conduct their research

according to the executive director
for the committee of concerned journalists the internet has given
journalists huge opportunities to cover more stories and to cover them in a
different way than traditional media
have done
different indeed
these days many reporters rarely leave their offices
they use the internet
email and the phone instead of conducting live interviews or going to the scene of the
event

another impact of the internet has been

an increased number of the official news
outlets in the form of websites
however many internet sites are just
extensions of existing news media television news networks various news
publications and feature the same
journalist stories rather than additional stories

finally
internet blogs have had a significant
impact on modern journalism blogs provide a way for what we call
citizen journalists to report their own
version of the news
think about it
traditionally professional journalists
have decided what news to report to the
public
now through blogs
citizen journalists are deciding what's
important

so what do all of these changes mean for

the future of journalism
well
i don't think professional journalists
will become extinct like dinosaurs
rather i see a new paradigm for
journalism
a partnership between citizen
journalists and professional journalists
there's room for all of us
that said
we all must be committed to the seven
principles
and that's where i'm going to leave off
today please discuss in your study groups which of the seven principles you think are more
valuable to good journalism
UNIT 11: PHILOSOPHY – UNKNOW

every day we have to make decisions we have to ask ourselves what's the right thing to do and
what's the wrong thing to do but how do we make these decisions how do we know what's
right and wrong

the study of ethics can give us some answers today I'd like to talk about two different
approaches two different ways to make ethical decisions the rights approach and the utilitarian
approach so

first I'll explain each approach and then we'll see how these work in real
world examples

first let's talk about the rights approach we use the idea of
rights to talk about many ethical problems this idea of rights comes

originally from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant a German philosopher in

the 18th century the principle says that
each individual has the freedom to make choices and that other people must respect those
choices

let's take the right to free speech as an example a

freedom of speech means two things first that I have the right to say whatever I want and
second that other people must respect my right to speak so according to the rights approach
an ethical action must respect an individual's choices the power of the individual to make his or
her own decisions to decide if an action is ethical using the rights approach we
must always ask how does this action affect the individuals freedom to make
choices now let's look at another approach the utilitarian approach that's
UTILITARIAN

the utilitarian approach

was made popular in the 19th century by
British philosopher John Stuart Mill in
this approach the most important thing
is not individual rights the most
important thing is making the world a
better place so here an ethical action
is one that creates the greatest amount
of good
let's take for example paying
taxes the government collects taxes from individual people no most people don't like paying
taxes because they have less money to spend on other things
however, taxes help the community as a
whole paying for things like hospitals roads schools parks things that benefit
everyone so even though paying taxes is
bad for some people individually it's good for the majority for most people in the community so
to decide if an action is ethical following the utilitarian
approach we must ask what action will cause the greatest good for the most people

now let's take a real-world

example and look at how to make a
decision using these two approaches that
is the rights approach and the
utilitarian approach let's look at the
question of public smoking starting in
the late 1990s this became an issue in
many places when smoking was banned in
office buildings schools restaurants and
so on the question is how do we make a
decision about whether to ban smoking or
not when you look at the problem from
the rights approach

we have to ask how

does smoking in public affect individual
rights and we have to look at the rights
of two groups of people smokers and
non-smokers so

first let's look at the

rights of smokers smokers will say that
they should be free to
wherever they want and that other people should respect that right even if they don't like it but
what about non-smokers

non-smokers say that they should be free

to breathe clean air and that smokers
should respect that right smokers shouldn't force people to breathe their
cigarette smoke this however shows us one of the problems of using the rights
approach because when you have two groups how do you decide whose rights
are more important smokers or non-smokers for another point of view
let's take the utilitarian approach following that approach we have to ask
what creates the greatest amount of good allowing smoking in public places or
banning it so what's good about allowing smoking in public places
well smokers will be happy that that's pretty much it but it causes a lot of harm so overall you
can argue that the ethical choice is to impose a ban on smoking in public places because it
creates the greater good public places will be healthier and will save money on health costs
because fewer people will get sick through this example we can see the differences between
looking at an ethical problem from the rights approach and from the utilitarian approach so until
next time I'd like you to think of some other real-life examples and consider them in the context
of the two ethical decision making approaches we discussed today that's a
 UNIT 11: DNA TESTING
i'd like us to concentrate on DNA will focus on DNA testing and
specifically on DNA testing of people before I explain how it's done I
want to review a bit from the reading
now you'll recall that cells comprise every part of our body our DNA is
in every cell DNA contains genetic

information like eye color hair color height and many other traits
passed down from a mother and a father to their child so each of us
has our own DNA our own combination of genetic information from our
parents for example a brother and a sister may end up with the same
color of eyes and hair however other genetic information received from
the parents will be different which is why they look different for
example maybe the brother is short like the mother and the sister is
tall like the father keep in mind that DNA is in every cell in the body
and that all of these cells contain the same genetic information now
let's look at how DNA testing is used to identify people scientists create
a DNA profile also called a DNA fingerprint to
do this they need DNA from the person
they take samples from different parts of the body like hair blood skin
fingernails and body fluids

next they extract the DNA from the cells in these samples then they
read the DNA with a
computer they use the data to create the DNA fingerprint statistically
it's very unlikely that any two people will have
identical fingerprints now let's ask how DNA testing is used well there
are many
ways for exam
to identify an unknown accident victim or to find out who the father of
a child
is now here's an interesting one
in 1999 scientists used DNA testing to prove that the son of the french
king
louis xvi and marie antoinette in fact
died in prison he didn't escape as some people had believed DNA
testing
identified the son's body people have been arguing about this for more
than
two centuries

another use of DNA testing

is by police to solve crimes for example say there's a murder the police
have a
suspect they think did it in the crime
lab scientists used DNA samples from the suspect and DNA samples
from the
evidence at the crime scene then they
design what's called probes when the probes are put in with the DNA
samples
from the suspect and the DNA samples
from the evidence the probes show if the two sets of samples match
DNA
identification is very effective but not
100% foolproof for example suppose the only evidence at the crime
scene is
blood from the suspect if there's a match between a sample of the
crime
scene blood and the suspects blood this will help the police however a
single
match from just blood in this case isn't very strong evidence in
contrast

let's say the crime lab has four samples from the crime scene and four
samples from the suspect hair blood fingernails and skin samples they
design four probes one for each sample and they get four matches
bingo
the police can now feel more confident that they have the right
suspect why
remember I said DNA is in every cell in our body and each
cell contains all of our unique genetic information now let's turn to how
DNA
testing is used in the medical field

here let's consider how genetics is being used to diagnose diseases

with
diseases most DNA tests are given for
one of two reasons either to find out if someone has a certain disease
or to see
if the person is at risk for developing it researchers have found more
than
6,000 genetic disorders a genetic
disorder means something isn't normal in the person's genes a
mutation a change
in one gene can cause a disease and a DNA test can show if someone
has a
mutation in a gene that puts them at
risk for the disease notice I'm not saying that a change in one gene will
cause a disease only that the risk is higher we're learning more and
more
everyday about genetic diseases for example it now appears that the
disease
Alzheimer's which damages memory and older people is linked to our
genes so
we have to ask what are the pros and cons of DNA testing in medicine
on the
positive side testing might save lives
if a doctor can diagnose a disease in its early stages the patient can
get treated earlier or if a couple wants to have a baby,
they can use DNA testing to find out beforehand if any risks for
problems or diseases exist on the negative side there's the issue of
fairness

what happens if DNA testing reveals that we have a genetic disorder

that could
cause a disease and that information becomes known this brings us to
some
concerns about privacy a DNA profile contains a lot of personal
information
so I'd like you to think about the following questions one who
should own the DNA fingerprint once it's made - who should have
access to it
three how should genetic information be used and four would you want
people
especially people you don't know to have access to your DNA
fingerprint these are
some of the ethical questions we face about how to use the scientific
knowledge we have so please give these questions some thought as
you review the
lecture that's all for now