Ethics in Communication

The establishment of a strong code of ethics is extremely important in the field of public relations as well as all other fields that deal with the public on a daily basis. As we approach the 2008 presidential election it is interesting to look at how politicians uphold ethical values when dealing with the public. The article below was posted on PRSSA.

Is Ethics in Politics and Oxymoron?

I really believe that ethics is politics is an oxymoron. Political leaders in our country are faced with making ethical decisions everyday, and I think most of the time the make decisions on a pre-conventional level. Although I am sure there are many politicians who value ethics and do not consider self-interest when making a decision, there are enough leaser who think like this to make the entire profession look unethical in my eyes.

Politicians are forced to make so many decisions behind closed doors. They have many different advisors who seem to do a lot of the decision making for them. Each decision is ultimately based on how favorably the public will react to it. Rather then looking to see if the decision is ethical, they go back to the basic pre-conventional and conventional level of thinking and look at what their reputation will be after they announce their decision.

I think politicians should have a code of ethics that they abide by. Although I am sure it would still be broken on occasion, just like all codes of ethics are, I think it would make some politicians really think about the ethics involved with the decisions they make. I think it is hard for a profession as a whole to enforce ethics within their field when they have no foundation (code of ethics) to guide them. If a code of ethics was created and politicians had to sign it I feel as though they would be held responsible for ethical considerations.

Case Study: KDFW Suspends Rebecca Aguilar

Blogs have the power to ruin a person’s reputation as seen in the KDFW case involving reporter Rebecca Aguilar. The following story was written by the Dallas Morning News.
KDFW Suspends Rebecca Aguilar

Immediately after the story aired outraged viewers went directly to blogs to post there feelings on the story. The stations response to the complaints was to suspend Aguilar indefinitely. Personally I feel this was a quick fix for the station in order to silence the disapproval of bloggers and keep the stations reputation in tact.

Legally Aguilar did anything wrong. She and Walton communicated before the on-air interview every happened. Walton also told her where he would be so technically she did not ambush him. The station did not see a problem with the story before it was aired. The problem only arose after they saw the negative reaction from the public. Furthermore, it is completely unacceptable to only punish Aguilar for this story because there were so many layers of people, within the station, who approved it before it was aired. Her suspension seems to be driven by higher ups in the station who are trying to uphold their reputations by placing all the blame on the reporter.

When you Google Rebecca Aguilar it no longer shows the many accomplishments throughout her career it now shows her bad reporting skills and how she ambushed a pitiful old man. Blogs have given people the ability to write how they truly feel about a subject. People believe a lot of what they read and do not do any further investigation. How do readers know if the facts are all presented?

It is scary to think that your career could be ruined because of bloggers who don’t have all of the facts and the necessary educational background to make an informed statement on an issue. I am not de-validating bloggers only pointing out that they may not have qualifications to judge the laws and methods of a certain profession.

UPDATE ON CASE: Aguilar was fired from the KDFW at the beginning of March and hopes that she can one day restore her reputation within the field of journalism.