Journalism Ethics Speech at ACP Convention

     During his speech at the 2014 ACP Convention in San Diego, Chris Ison, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota, discussed several ways to report stories the right way.
     He began his speech by showing several different slides that were snapshots of front page newspapers from the past. He would show them then ask the audience if they were ethically right. The first slide was one of a newspaper that, on the front page, pictured the Virginia Tech shooter (Seung-Hui Cho who killed 38 people, including himself, in 2007) pointing a gun into the camera lens. Ison asked the audience if they would run that photo. Most said no, some said they would but not on the front page. One audience member said that she would rather run a picture of him looking pathetic rather than powerful because "He shouldn't be depicted as being powerful." Ison responded by saying "He shouldn't be depicted as being powerful? Why not?" The same audience member responded "That encourages other people to do the same thing. If they depict him as being weak and pathetic it most likely wouldn't create a 'copy cat' problem."
     He later showed a slide of the front page of a newspaper that showed a picture of a baby whose body was found in a trash bag in a vacant lot in Detroit. He asked who would run the photo, no one responded and some left the room. After talking about the incident a little bit more he asked the audience why they would not run the photo, one person responded saying that "It's dehumanizing." Ison then said to the audience "Ok, why would you run it?" A different audience member answered "Because it's the story." As he concluded talking about this slide he pointed out an ad on the front page that read "Best Fest for Kids" and mentioned that that probably should have been pulled reminding the audience that "You need to look at the whole page."
     Ison concluded his speech by talking about some principals and values of Journalism. He stated that the central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society. He discussed the Potter Box with is a series of steps to follow to help someone make ethical decisions. It was developed by Ralph B. Potter Jr. who was a professor of social ethics at Harvard Divinity School. The steps are as follows: Define the situation, What values should you apply, What principals should be applied, and What are your loyalties.