But I Still Haven't Found the Learning I'm Looking For

To paraphrase those Dublin-based rockers U2, "We still haven't found what we're looking for." Pardon the informal introduction, but I believe it's an apt way to explain a media ethics course problem. To whit: A colleague (he's in the philosophy department) and I (communication department) recently designed and taught our own media ethics course at Buffalo State College. We wanted to do something about the mass-production process of journalism education, to loosely borrow a term used in Jeremy Cohen's "Editor's Note" in the Winter 2005 issue of Journalism S1MaSs Communication Educator. Our goal was to show our forty students (about twenty-five from journalism and fifteen from philosophy) that conduct and decisions matter, as do ideas. I don't mean to marginalize the academy, nor do I mean to imply that colleges are divided into theory vs. process curriculums, but I do mean that some of us who teach writing, editing, and even Web design courses worry that theory is easily ignored. We see ethics as the tortoise racing with the rabbit of practical things studentjournalists need to know to put out a daily or weekly news product. It's a split that, as Cohen quotes Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, posits schools either to focus on training students in the day-to-day practicalities or to focus on communication theory, including ethics and critical thinking skills. (Cohen, 2005, p. 335) My colleague and I wanted to be both practical and theoretical. (And that's why this essay is also a mix of each in seeking advice.) To paraphrase someone: Everybody talks about ethics, but hardly anyone does anything about it. In other words, we too often assume we know something about ethics and are ethical ourselves, but, as events from the past several years indicate, perhaps we are sadly mistaken. So my colleague and I wanted to discuss with our students how they could develop a workable ethical code. Among our learning objectives: * to implement and assess procedures for making moral decisions; * to assess codes of professional ethics; and * to have class members develop and continue to examine their own code of ethics. We asked students what they thought were the core values of journalism and what principles should be kept in mind. In short, we asked them to examine how they make decisions: * Do they use "gut" instinct? Well, that helps, but such decisions may not always offer a solid defensible reason. On the other hand, a decision based solely on rules may be difficult to apply since there might be conflicts and exceptions. * What factors go into making a decision? Is it important to beat the competition? But don't such selfserving concerns put the news organization at odds with the interests of the public? * Is the perspective of others important, especially those who would argue from the opposite point of view? * And is a decision made in one instance good enough to dictate how to act in similar cases? How unique is each case? For example, if the main goal is to report and/or comment on the news completely and truthfully, students and educators must think about what matters: * What are the obligations/ responsibilities? * Who are the stakeholders? * What are the relevant facts? * What role do codes of ethics play in the equation? Why are they developed? By whom and for what purpose? Getting students to that point was our quest. Yet judging by student evaluations, it was our impossible dream. Our score for "Overall rating of this course" was 3.06 (based on 17 responses; with a score of 5 being excellent and 1 being poor). But the 3.06 wasn't the unkindest cut; anecdotal evidence was worse. As proof, I include two comments picked at random, one negative, one positive: "Excellent copy editor-otherwise, not so excellent-go back to the newspaper!" (When I first taught this course, I was in my third year as a fulltime faculty member; I had been a newspaper reporter or editor for about twenty years previously. …