Exploring The Compatibility Of Buddhist Ethical Framework With Journalism Ethics

The Significance

Discuss About The Viewing Of Media Broadcasts Animal Cruelty?

In this paper the chances of applying the principles that are fundamental relating to one of the  key religious in the world with respect to the practice of seeking the truth and telling the truth in the contemporary era is being explored and is questioned whether this ethical framework is well matched with the journalism as the fourth estate initiative. According to the researcher, this is however not meant to be a religious exposition since he neither belongs to Buddhism nor he is an expert in the philosophy of Buddhist. It has been stated that none of the topics in the academic paper has arisen like this in just a vacuum, so here he has explained the context related with both personal and professional which has risen with this issue from over the four decades and has strengthened it in the recent year (Barnes, 2015). Most of the academic work in this paper is related to the field of media law where its focus is mainly upon the application of laws and regulations practically to the work done by the journalists. From period to period the undertakings have been venturing into the ethical and regulatory frameworks of media in which the legislative, the philosophical, and self-regulatory framework have informed and related to the investigation of the laws that are actually impacting upon the journalists. Professional, ethical codes are not considered to be the religious treatises neither they are the holy scriptures that are written or spoken as the codes of practice for any kind of specific occupation (Craig, Ketterer & Yousuf, 2017). However, in this paper, neither of them is discussed. Rather, it has been set out on exploring the foundational teachings of journalism ethics that are focusing on the purer life might notify the practice of journalism. At some of the stages, it becomes obvious that some of the elements of the libertarian model of the journalism might not be compatible with such kind of principles especially if they are being interpreted in the narrowest manner (Deuze & Yeshua, 2001).

Simultaneously, the scholars those are most prominent have inclined in exploring the subject with respect to moral theory, social theory and logical theory instead of experimental observations often with inherent understandings and also the assumptions that are derived from the theory of social responsibility. Some of the researchers (for example, Day 1991; Klaidman and Beauchamp 1987) have even discussed the responsibilities of journalists in the context of the broader obligations of journalism in general to the society and in particular to the social responsibility theory (Friend & Singer, 2015). While some of the scholars (Hodges 1986; Elliott 1986) have outlined the responsibilities of media with regards to the ethical principles which can be applied to the journalism along with any kind of human interaction in which a choice on moral can be made.

Limitations

The work carried out by Friend & Singer is of particular significance with respect to the role of codes in Australia in relation to online journalists face a new ethical dilemma (Friend & Singer, 2015). He has extensively written regarding the importance of the individual autonomy and individualism in journalism. During this process, there was a warning against communitarian tendencies. While it was argued by him that it is important for the journalists to combine responsibility and freedom for producing the responsible freedom (García-Avilés & Maciá-Barber, 2014). More recently, he explained the views which were reflecting on the concern that is considerable regarding the survival of the idea of press freedom. He even argued for a short time that slowly but unalterably there is an unfolding of the communitarian worldview. Also, he said that the role of code in Australia over the online journalists is in the form of order and the community spirit which can be taken over from the individualism and from social chaos. By doing so, they will be losing the importance of institution (Giles et al., 2015).

Press freedom will be allowing the journalists in Australia to examine and report any case accurately with respect to governments, any big corporations, and the power in their society. Only with the help of press freedom that is genuine, the voters will be able to make informed decisions near the ballot box every two years. Without which the public will be put in the darkness where they will not have any idea of what is actually going on and what is done by government in their name. Recently in Australia, it has been noticed that there were many threats to this code of conduct in restricting the press freedom compelling the way the journalists work and silencing the real news stories from becoming public (Hanusch et al., 2015). It will not be an exaggeration to say that when all these changes are combined the greatest assault is represented by them in Australian on press freedom in peacetime and real journalism in which the public interest is being criminalized. Though press freedom is a global issue campaigning about that for the journalist’s right in going about their business without any harassment, censorship or persecution is the code of practice of MEAA (Hanusch, 2015).

In the whole summary described above, it seems to be very clear that there would be some limitations with respect to the social responsibility theory as a code of practice in Australia; though it continues to be the fundamentally important in understanding the journalism ethics. However, there are some exceptions other than some of the approaches that have been developed from the perceptions that are based on the communitarianism and other have been sparked by the concern regarding the role of the Western media in the third world (Hanusch, 2013). The limitation is that most of the interpretations that are on the journalism ethics have been grounded in the social responsibility theory or they are being rest on the assumptions which have been derived from the theory of aspects.

A good journalism can be testified with thousands of examples with respect to words which can bring the writers, viewers, listeners, and readers to the joy. Equal to this there are many examples which indicated the poor journalism where the limitation is the language which can obscure reduce responses and even stop people from their different thinking (Larsen, 2016). With all the journalistic reports there is an underlying difficulty irrespective of the journalist how much talented they are and the compositions they made, no matter how powerful or moving the end result might be. It is the issue related to language which is the biggest limitation. It is very obvious to observe that any interpretation made by the journalist is mediated by language and that even one of the best reports cannot go beyond the language which is a role of code because the report itself is solely comprised of language. These limitations have been lightened by the (Joyce et al., 2017) an Australian historian. He has observed the survivors of the Holocaust who has made an attempt in recounting their disturbing experiences. It is very common that journalists themselves will be complaining about the inadequacies of the talent, experiences, and resources. However, the journalists are aware of the limitations of the language along back and for many years they have made numerous attempts in overcoming these limitations (Porter & Prenzler, 2016).

Of course on its own, the journalistic truth cannot be ensured by accuracy. A report made by the journalist can be accurate in content absolutely but at the same time, it might have focused on the things that are marginal to the event which is being reported. Indeed the journalists might often do the lies in the report accurately and the sources of the accurate report will know what had happened (Tiplady, Walsh & Phillips, 2015). This kind of situation is even more worsened with the techniques that are used by the journalists in gathering the information. For instance, the attention to the limitations has been drawn by Malcolm (1994) in relation to the interview format. It has been claimed in this is that most of the interviews the interviewer and the subject both will be giving more than what is actually necessary.

In support of the role of code in Australia for the online journalists to face new ethical dilemma there is an example of the case which points out that in Australia there is still the existence of instances relating to overt and implied racism in spite of the code of ethics of journalists, innumerable codes of practice, and the procedures related to the complaints of the Australian  (Weiss, 2015)However, this is not the main purpose of the discussion in resolving the debate that is made over the professionalism in journalism. It is significant in presenting the acknowledgment of the consequences for the journalistic ethics in this argument of the debate that is prolonged that is stimulated by the unreliable nature of the connection that exists between professionalism and journalism. There is a consequence that arises because of a conflict between the people who will be claiming that journalism is just considered to be a trade or a craft. But the individual who will be seeking that position of journalism is a form of the profession than it means that they have failed in responding to the ethical discussion in the manner where the conservative professionals will be regarded as standards (Tiplady, Walsh & Phillips, 2015).

The other point is that this debate has diverted the attention of the people from the ground of the unethical conduct of the journalists even after the ethical principles of the journalism are found to be far more significant when compared with the journalists calling them professionals or not. Certainly, the main focus of the argument has been placed upon whether the journalism is a profession or not or what would be the necessary things which can place itself as a profession but fairly the ethical practice of the journalism. When all these factors have been combined, it has helped in explaining why there are no instances in supporting the unethical behavior of journalists. These evaluations have been held widely; hence for instance, it is claimed by Porter & Prenzler (2016) that journalists will be differing more, perhaps, in moral probity than in any kind of calling from the high morale and principled to the permanently grubby (Porter & Prenzler, 2016) that media responsibility is an expression that is very close to the oxymoron condition where one will be finding themselves compared with the integrity of police, intelligence of military, and society of Sydney.

Although it is not clearly stated that a perspective from a journalist that have risen above is understood in much of the journalistic work that has been published in Australia before. From reports, many instances that are carried in the daily newspapers of Australia have to avail this point. The pointed one is a minor story in which the content and nature are determined clearly by the values of news while the outcome is the combination of the values of the news and the individual viewpoint of a journalist.

In order to be supportive for the code, it is expected that the report from the ethics review committee of the MEAA (1997) would be apt. In reviewing the code of ethics of MEAA journalists the committee has been set up in the year 1993 (Larsen, 2016). In this report, a brief discussion regarding the role of journalism has been included in general and in particular the codes of ethics. But the terms of reference were specifically directed at the MEAA code and hence some useful recommendations have been incorporated into it about the content and provisions of that code. In this, there was no inclusion of a broader range of theoretical discussion of ethics.

By Hanusch et al. journalism ethics has been referred to as the discussion of the objectivity and professionalism incidentally when a revival of the fourth estate notion of the press founded on the notions of journalistic autonomy and independence was called by her. It has been argued by her that however, the role of the press from the fourth estate view is ideal for most of the journalists the forecasts in achieving this have been declined (Hanusch et al., 2015). It is due to the increased concentration of the ownership of media, the increased pressures of commercialism and the ethical standards that are declining have led the public in becoming more cautious of the media.

Conclusion

Journalism is a sensitive and complex profession due to various reasons. The professionals need to act in a responsible way to share the truth with the masses and the masses need to support the journalists to voice their opinion in the best way possible. The journalism work has a significant impact on the general public and the objective of the profession cannot be fulfilled without the proper support of the people. In case of the online journalism profession, the complexity gets magnified due to the involvement of a larger section of the population. In the complex scenario, the ethical dilemmas need to be carefully identified relating to the new media platform i.e. the internet (Díaz-Campo & Segado-Boj, 2015). Due to the influence of various factors such as the cultural diversity in the environment, globalization of media, social approach towards media and the crucial impact of technology on journalism, the ethical concerns faced by journalists has heightened. The paper has been specially modeled to highlight the ethical concerns faced by the online journalists (Fisher, 2016).

The philosophical basis of journalist code of conduct must be understood so that the online journalists can use key journalistic concepts that can help them to make ethical decision-making. The online journalism environment is influenced by a web of external elements that beat the objective of the profession. It is vital to understand such ethical challenges so that the best practice can be adopted by the journalists to share the truth in the open public forum. The language issue that exists in the online journalism platform needs to be effectively tackled so that the disorientation of the news will not take place. The public is extremely sensitivity so responsible journalism practices need to be adopted so that the right message reaches them in the best way possible. The freedom of expression must not be hindered due to language concerns.

The journalists are the few individuals that have the power to positively influence the masses to bring about a favourable change in the social front. The writing weapon that they have must be put to the most effective use so that the ethical responsibilities are productively met in the process. They must be able to establish the link between the relevant traditions relating to moral philosophy and the requirements of the public. This responsible journalism approach can enhance its overall functional aspects (Weiss, 2015).

Increase in the level of professionalism is a necessity in the journalism field since it can boost the flow of the accurate message. People have the right to be aware of the correct political and social environment that exists around them. Thus all the ethical aspects need to be taken into account while delivering the service to the end users i.e. the general public. There have been a number of instances, where the journalists have exhibited poor professional behaviour. There are instances where these professionals manipulate words of the interviewees in order to get the attention from the public. Such cheap tactics must be avoided by the professionals since their actions have a direct or indirect impact on the public (Weiss, 2015).

A vital change that can be brought about in the journalism front can be introduced by the online journalists themselves. Since they are the ones who have the power to bring about a change in the society, their personal ideas and principals need to be strong enough to differentiate between the right and the wrong things. In Australia and in the rest of the world, all the ethical aspects need to be taken into consideration so that the challenges that appear in the path can be effectively removed. The responsible behaviour on part of the online journalists is the need of the times to reduce the amount of chaos that exists in the world.

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