JOMC 141: Professional Problems and Ethics in Mass Media
Spring 1997
Prof. Philip MeyerEmail:philip_meyer@unc.edu
"We are a culture of subcultures. The more successful the subculture is -- and journalism is very successful -- the more it will fall back on its own interests and values. This is the way the world works, and anyone who does not understand it is doomed to frustration and heartbreak." -- Daniel Yankelovich, 1989.
The subculture of journalism is no longer as confident of its success. Its old values are increasingly under question. The topic of this course is therefore a moving target. We shall approach it with two organizing principles:
1. A critical study of traditional journalistic values, the historical forces that created them, and the current trends that threaten them.
2. An evaluation of "public journalism," a conscious attempt by some media managers to change their subculture -- and possibly its value system.
The optional text is Meyer, Ethical Journalism, which provides the baseline of traditional values as measured in a 1982 study of newspaper editors, publishers and staff members.
The required text is Yankelovich, Coming to Public Judgment, which has been the intellectual wellspring of the public journalism movement.
For the first goal, understanding traditional values, we shall use case studies as well as the 1982 survey data. Each of you will be asked to develop an original case study, based on your own interviewing and/or correspondence with the participants. Those who write the best cases will be asked to present them to the class.
Jan. 7 Let's jump right into a case that is in today's news. It's about reporters' methods: The Food Lion case.
Jan. 9 News as entertainment: discussion of Food Lion.
Jan. 14 "The success of democracy depends on an informed public." If that's true, we're in trouble, because the public is not well informed at all. Perhaps making a distinction between information and judgment will help. Yankelovich, pp. 1-55.
Jan. 16 The changing economics of the news business and how they affect its values. Meyer, Learning to Love Lower Profits, American Journalism Review, Dec., 1995.
Jan. 21 Western foundations, Aristotle to Jefferson. Class discussion: is journalism a craft or a profession? Does it belong in the sciences or the humanities?
Jan. 23 The corruption of the Western tradition. How overgeneralizing the principle of libertarian individualism led to First Amendment absolutism. Meyer, Ethical Journalism, pp. 1-17.
Jan. 28 Yankelovich's problem: The expert-public gap. Yankelovich, pp. 59-114.
Jan. 30 Efforts at a media reformation. The 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. Meyer, "The media reformation," Chapter 4 in Michael Nelson, Ed., The Elections of 1992.
Feb. 4 Getting to judgment. Yankelovich's 10 rules. Yankelovich, pp. 115-176.
Feb. 6 Citizen-based journalism. What some newspapers are doing to help news media find a better way to cover elections. Guest speaker: Pete Weitzel, former editor, The Miami Herald.
Feb. 11 Habermas and discourse ethics. What post-modern philosophy might do for (or to) us. Yankelovich, pp. 179-236.
Feb. 13 Public journalism and the problem of objectivity. (A written copy of an earlier version of this lecture is available on WWW site to be announced.)
Feb. 18 Media and social capital: reciprocity, chaos theory, and the prisoner's dilemma.
Feb. 20 Back to the real world through fiction: Absence of Malice, Part I.
Feb. 25 Absence of Malice, Part II. Discussion.
Feb. 27 When moral values are a moving target: The case of the Miami Herald and Gary Hart.
Mar. 4 When your values and those of the community conflict: The case of Jim Bakker and The Charlotte Observer.
Mar. 6 Mid-term exam.
Spring Break
Mar. 18 Building confidence: the problem of conflict of interest from Zoe Baird to Cokie Roberts. Group A term papers due today.
Mar. 20 Relationships with sources. Video, "A Case of Need." Book reports due today.
Mar. 25 Advocacy communication. Issues in public relations and advertising. Film: "The Ad and the Ego."
Mar. 27 Student case presentations. Group B term papers due today.
Apr. 1 Technological temptations: the case of the burning trucks.
Apr. 3 Dealing with victims: the special case of rape.
Apr. 8 Student case presentations.
Apr. 10 Affirmative action in mass communication.
Apr. 15 Advertiser influence under traditional values and where it might go under the new values.
Apr. 17 Media accountability systems. Written codes. Why Mike Wallace changed his mind.
Apr. 22 C.S. Lewis on the inner ring. Some farewell advice from an old anvil. Group C term papers due today.
Grades
Weights are assigned as follows:
Book report 25
Case study 25
Mid-term 25
Final 25
Book Report
Read a book published since 1975 on one of the following topics:
1. Contemporary moral values and/or their historical background.
2. The decline of trust and/or community in American life.
A sampling of such books is listed below. You may use a book not on the list with the prior approval of the instructor. Approval must be asked in writing with a one-paragraph description of the book.
Write an essay of exactly 2,000 words that connects the ideas in the book to as many of the following as you can:
1. The moral duties of mass media in the information age.
2. Your personal moral and/or religious beliefs.
3. The relationship between a news medium and its community, now and in the future.
Pre-approved books
Listed in chronological order of publication. The star ratings indicate my rank ordering of their difficulty, with 5 stars the most difficult.
Frances A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1978. **
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. ****
Robert N. Bellah, et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. ***
Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (translated by Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen), Cambridge, MIT Press, 1990. Published in Germany in 1983. *****
Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn't So, New York: The Free Press, 1991. *
Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities and the Communitarian Agenda. New York: Crown Publishers, 1993. *
Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. **
James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense, New York:: The Free Press, 1993. **
Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues & the Creation of Prosperity, New York: The Free Press, 1995. **
W. Davis Merritt, Public Journalism and Public Life: Why Telling the News Is Not Enough, Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1995. *
Arthur Charity, Doing Public Journalism, New York: The Guilford Press, 1995. *
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, New York, Random House, 1995. *
Michael Schudson, The Power of News, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995. **
James Fallows, Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy, Pantheon Books, 1996 (PN4888.O25 F35). *
Jack Fuller, News Values: Ideas for an Information Age, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. *
Frans de Waal, Good Natured: The Origin of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.*