Media Ethics

Issues and Cases, Ninth Edition

Philip Patterson; Lee Wilkins and Chad Painter

Media Ethics, Ninth Edition is a diverse, classroom tested compilation of 60 diverse cases that will help students prepare for the ethical situations they will confront in their media careers. Ninety percent of the cases are based on actual events, and authors from many institutions and media outlets contributed both real-life and hypothetical cases. There is a strong focus on ethical theory and practice throughout the book, which works well as both a main text in a media ethics course, and in an "across the curriculum" approach in other media courses.

Every chapter has been revised to include the most significant research and thinking about the individual topics in the field, including more attention to emerging ethical theory in the areas of privacy, truth telling, and the political role of the news media.

Key updates to the Ninth Edition:

A new chapter devoted to the theory and practice of social justice
25 new cases covering current topics as diverse as “weedvertising,” “Doxxing,” drones, and sexual harassment in the newsroom
The implications of digital content throughout multiple media industries and platforms
Fake news
Technological invasions of privacy
The blending of entertainment, infotainment, and news

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 400 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-5381-1258-8 • Paperback • August 2018 • $90.00 • (£69.00)

978-1-5381-1259-5 • eBook • August 2018 • $85.50 • (£66.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Media Studies, Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies, Language Arts & Disciplines / Journalism, Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Philosophy / Ethics / Journalistic Ethics

Media Ethics

Issues and Cases, Ninth Edition

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Media Ethics, Ninth Edition is a diverse, classroom tested compilation of 60 diverse cases that will help students prepare for the ethical situations they will confront in their media careers. Ninety percent of the cases are based on actual events, and authors from many institutions and media outlets contributed both real-life and hypothetical cases. There is a strong focus on ethical theory and practice throughout the book, which works well as both a main text in a media ethics course, and in an "across the curriculum" approach in other media courses.

Every chapter has been revised to include the most significant research and thinking about the individual topics in the field, including more attention to emerging ethical theory in the areas of privacy, truth telling, and the political role of the news media.

Key updates to the Ninth Edition:
- A new chapter devoted to the theory and practice of social justice
- 25 new cases covering current topics as diverse as “weedvertising,” “Doxxing,” drones, and sexual harassment in the newsroom
- The implications of digital content throughout multiple media industries and platforms
- Fake news
- Technological invasions of privacy
- The blending of entertainment, infotainment, and news

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 400 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-5381-1258-8 • Paperback • August 2018 • $90.00 • (£69.00)

978-1-5381-1259-5 • eBook • August 2018 • $85.50 • (£66.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Media Studies, Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies, Language Arts & Disciplines / Journalism, Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Philosophy / Ethics / Journalistic Ethics

Author

Philip Patterson is Distinguished Professor of Mass Communication at Oklahoma Christian University.

Lee Wilkins is Professor and Chair of the Wayne State University Communication Department and Distinguished Curator's Teaching Professor and Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri.

Chad Painter is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Dayton.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Clifford G. Christians

Preface

Acknowledgments

1
An Introduction to Ethical Decision Making
Essay

Cases and moral systems
Deni Elliott

Case 1-A
How to read a case study
Philip Patterson

2
Information Ethics: A Profession Seeks the Truth
Case 2-A
Anonymous or confidential? Unnamed sources in the news
Lee Wilkins

Case 2-B
Death as content: Social responsibility and the documentary filmmaker
Tanner Hawkins

Case 2-C
News and the transparency standard
Lee Wilkins

Case 2-D
Can I quote me on that?
Chad Painter

Case 2-E
NPR, The New York Times and working conditions in China
Lee Wilkins

Case 2-F
When is objective reporting irresponsible reporting?
Theodore Glasser

Case 2-G
Is it news yet?
Michelle Peltier
Case 2-H
What’s yours is mine: The ethics of news aggregation
Chad Painter

3
Strategic Communication: Does Client Advocate mean Consumer Adversary?
Case 3-A
Weedvertising
Lee Wilkins

Case 3-B
Cleaning up their act: The Chipotle food safety crisis
Kayla McLaughlin and Kelly Vibber

Case 3-C
Keeping Up with the Kardashians prescription drug choices
Tara Walker

Case 3-D
Between a (Kid) Rock and a hard place
Molly Shor

Case 3-E
Was that an Apple computer I saw? Product placement in the U.S. and abroad
Philip Patterson

Case 3-F
Sponsorships, sins and PR: What are the boundaries?
Lauren Bacon Brengarth

Case 3-G
A charity drops the ball
Philip Patterson

4
Loyalty: Choosing Between Competing Allegiances
Case 4-A
Fair or foul? Reporter/Player relationships in the sports beat
Lauren A. Waugh

Case 4-B
To watch or to Report: What journalists were thinking in the midst of disaster
Lee Wilkins

Case 4-C
Public/on-air journalist vs. private/online life: Can it work?
Madison Hagood

Case 4-D
When you are the story: Sexual harassment in the newsroom
Lee Wilkins

Case 4-E
Whose Facebook page is it anyway?
Amy Simons

Case 4-F
Where everybody knows your name: Reporting and relationships in a small market
Ginny Whitehouse

Case 4-G
Quit, blow the whistle, or go with the flow?
Robert Wakefield

Case 4-H
How one tweet ruined a life
Philip Patterson

5
Privacy: Looking for Solitude in the Global Village
Case 5-A
Drones and the news
Kathleen Bartzen Culver

Case 5-B
Concussion bounty: Is trust ever worth violating?
Lee Wilkins

Case 5-C
Joe Mixon: How do we report on domestic violence in sports?
Brett Deever

Case 5-D
Looking for Richard Simmons
Lee Wilkins

Case 5-E
Children and framing: The use of children’s images in an anti-same-sex marriage ad
Yang Liu

Case 5-F
Mayor Jim West’s computer
Ginny Whitehouse

Case 5-G
Politics and money: What’s private and what’s not
Lee Wilkins

6
Mass Media in a Democratic Society: Keeping a Promise
Case 6-A
Reporting on rumors: When should a news organization debunk?
Lee Wilkins

Case 6-B
Doxxer, Doxxer, give me the news?
Mark Anthony Poepsel

Case 6-C
The truth about the facts: Politifact.com
Lee Wilkins

Case 6-D
WikiLeaks
Lee Wilkins

Case 6-E
“Control Room”: Do culture and history matter in reporting the news?
Lee Wilkins

Case 6-F
Victims and the press
Robert Logan

Case 6-G
For God and Country: The media and national security
Jeremy Littau and Mark Slagle

7
Media Economics: The Deadline Meets the Bottom Line
Case 7-A
Murdoch’s mess
Lee Wilkins
Case 7-B
Who controls the local news? Sinclair Broadcasting Group and “must-runs”
Keena Neal

Case 7-C
Automated journalism: The rise of robot reporters
Chad Painter

Case 7-D
Conflicted interests, contested terrain: The New York Times Code of Ethics
Lee Wilkins and Bonnie Brennan

Case 7-E
Transparency in fundraising: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting standard
Lee Wilkins

Case 7-F
News now, facts later
Lee Wilkins

Case 7-G
Crossing the line? The L.A. Times and the Staples affair
Philip Patterson and Meredith Bradford

8
Picture This: The Ethics of Photo and Video Journalism
Case 8-A
Killing a journalist on-air: A means/ends test
Mitchel Allen

Case 8-B
Remember My Fame: Digital Necromancy and the Immortal Celebrity
Samantha Most

Case 8-C
Problem photos and public outcry
Jon Roosenraad

Case 8-D
Above the fold: Balancing newsworthy photos with community standards
Jim Godbold and Janelle Hartman

Case 8-E
Horror in Soweto
Sue O’Brien
Case 8-F
Photographing funerals of fallen soldiers
Philip Patterson

9
Informing a Just Society
Case 9-A
“Spotlight”: It takes a village to abuse a child
Lee Wilkins
Case 9-B
“12th and Clairmount”: A newspaper’s foray into documenting a pivotal summer
Lee Wilkins
Case 9-C
Cincinnati Enquirer’s heroin beat
Chad Painter
Case 9-D
Feminist fault lines: Political memoirs and Hillary Clinton
Miranda Atkinson
Case 9-E
GoldieBlox: Building a future on theft
Scott Burgess

10
The Ethical Dimensions of Art and Entertainment
Case 10-A
Get Out: When the horror is race
Michael Fuhlhage and Lee Wilkins
Case 10-B
To die for: Making terrorists of gamers in Modern Warfare 2
Philip Patterson
Case 10-C
Daily dose of civic discourse
Chad Painter
Case 10-D
The Onion: Finding humor in mass shootings
Chad Painter
Case 10-E
Hate radio: The outer limits of tasteful broadcasting
Brian Simmons
Case 10-F
“Searching for Sugar Man”: Rediscovered art
Lee Wilkins

11
Becoming a Moral Adult

Bibliography

Index

Reviews

What I love about Media Ethics: Issues and Cases, Ninth Edition is that it covers ethics the way I teach ethics: as a process. I believe that ethics is asking yourself a set of questions, not parroting a predetermined outcome. When the authors present the cases, they make the students think for themselves, they don't tell them the "right" answer. The questions make great writing prompts for papers, too!
— Kim Zarkin, Professor and Chair of Communications, Westminster College

Features

Special Features:

• A true “media ethics” book as opposed to a “journalism ethics” book

• Features more than 60 cases

• Each case has pedagogical questions that expand outward from the specifics of the case itself to ever-larger issues suggested by the case

• Chapters in such areas as social justice, media and democracy, loyalty, etc. cross all media and include all media as opposed to segmenting the text by medium

• An introductory chapter in moral philosophy begins the text and a concluding chapter in moral development concludes it

New features
New to the Ninth Edition:

• A new chapter devoted to the theory and practice of social justice

• 25 new cases covering current topics as diverse as “weedvertising,” “Doxxing,” drones, and sexual harassment in the newsroom

• The implications of digital content throughout multiple media industries and platforms

• Fake news

• Technological invasions of privacy

• The blending of entertainment, infotainment, and news

Resources

FOR STUDENTS
Accompanying the text is an open-access Companion Website designed to reinforce the main topics and help you master key vocabulary and concepts through flashcards and self-graded quizzes.
FOR PROFESSORS
Ancillary Materials are available for this title. For access to these professor use only materials, please Sign-In if you are a registered user, or Register then email us at textbooks@rowman.com

Test Bank. The Test Bank includes a variety of test questions and is available in either Word, PDF or Respondus formats. For every chapter in the text, the Test Bank includes a complete test with a variety of question types, including multiple choice, true false, and essay formats.

Our Test Bank is most flexibly used in Respondus, test authoring software which is available in two forms. Check with your university to see if you have a site license to the full program, Respondus 4.0, which offers the option to upload your tests to any of the most popular course management systems such as Blackboard. If you don’t have a Respondus license or do not care about having your tests in a course management system, you can use our test bank file in Respondus LE. The LE program is free and can be used to automate the process of creating tests in print format. (Please note that Not all test banks are available as a Respondus package.)

• Visit the Respondus Test Bank Network to download the test bank for either Respondus 4.0 or Respondus LE.

• If you prefer to use our Test Bank in Word or PDF, please Sign-In if you are a registered user, or Register then email us at textbooks@rowman.com

Media Ethics

Issues and Cases, Ninth Edition

Philip Patterson; Lee Wilkins and Chad Painter

Media Ethics

Issues and Cases, Ninth Edition

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