Media Ethics

Media has a major role on building our community. People tend to rely on it since it is their source of communication in the present time. And since media in general and TV in specific stopped being only our eyewitness to history and started to actually create history, it holds our existence within its hands.

Journalists and TV presenters took the responsibility on their shoulders to make a difference to challenge people and open their minds to “get involved, get engaged, and take ownership of community problems.” Jan Schaffer, Journalist. That was the oath that some of the honest workers in media pledged to. However, the governments in this era that we are living in today made it clear that what those journalists were striving to accomplish is not enough. Journalism in all of its shapes and kinds is still receiving constitutional protection to fit a certain mold that they would like to impose on our democratic society.

One of the media ethics is to seek a high honest level and quality of journalism to improve the community’s capacity for dealing with their problems. If we were to analyze that and try to build up connections with what’s happening around us nowadays we will notice how our journalism lacks substance, honesty and integrity. Almost every thing that surrounds us today is fabricated, manipulated and twisted to fit specific political sides. Government’s attempts to impose some sort of control are clear to the eyes; however, the government is not the only one to blame.

During our class it was my first time to hear about the Hala Sarhan scandal if I can call it that. It was quite shocking to me considering how respected as a TV presenter she is not only in the Egyptian community but in the Arab one as well. I am sure that her show was based on deep research, investigations and interrogations and maybe or probably those stories which were told by those actors were based on true stories that she came across herself; however, I don’t think that she have the right to lie to thousands or maybe even more of her viewers who look up to her and use her knowledge to build their own. I understand the difficulties that she must have faced trying to convince those prostitutes to come on her show and I am certain that facing rejection after weeks or maybe months of research is not very pleasing. It is true all that Hala Sarhan wanted to do is to deliver some sort of awareness to her viewers to make a difference yet I think it is unethical to fake a situation especially that there are other means of media that could have been more appropriate to do so such as a movie perhaps where hiring actors to fulfill a role and deliver a point of view is acceptable because the viewers are well aware that those people are acting however the whole thing is based on true stories.

When I think about this scandal I start to believe that some government control is not so bad after all. It could actually minimize the number of scandals that we are being exposed to every day but I am sure its going to introduce some in their place.