Ethics and Technology

I haven’t had my computer for 7 days.

It’s been very difficult. I kind of feel lost. I know you’re probably already rolling your eyes because this sounds pathetic (and I agree it kind of is), but this inconvenience couldn’t have come at a better time because as I was thinking about this essay, I’ve realized how important technology really is. Usually (when my computer is not locked up in the MacExperts store) I check my student email probably about 20 times a day- not to mention my Gmail account, Facebook, Bank of America account, and a series of newspapers’ websites- while also being signed on to AOL instant messenger for most of the day. If you couldn’t tell, I can’t live without my computer.

And my cell phone isn’t any different. I truly don’t leave home without it. It’s the first thing I check when I get out of class (if I haven’t already during class), when I am leaving the gym, when I’m walking out of my house, and when I wake up in the morning.

I really cannot understand how people used to live without technologies such as a cell phone or the Internet. But what I really cannot comprehend is how a newsroom operated without these types of technology. Already in my journalism career, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used my cell phone to call a source on a way to an interview, call to check in with my editor, or call the copydesk to change a fact in my story. Google is my best friend when fact checking for name, addresses, and phone numbers. Online dictionaries and thesauruses are my saving grace when I’m sitting on the copydesk. And who are we kidding? The Missourian couldn’t even be published without the Internet since we electronically send the paper to the publishing plant in Jefferson City.

Technology allows journalists to catch plagiarism more easily (while also tempting plagiarism at the same time). It gives us (meaning journalists) a world of easily assessable data to add to stories and lets us crunch that data at a high level. It connects us with sources around the world and creates a Web community for journalists to draw from. It lets us find out what other media outlets are doing (either in celebration that we’ve beaten our competitors on a story or in disappointment that we’ve been scooped). It allows us to file easily from remote locations and send our work out far and wide.

On the other hand (there’s always another hand), it can hamper with journalists’ ethical ability. It (like I already noted) invites temptation to plagiarize, especially in such a fast paced competitive news world. It encourages reliance on wire copy and electronic sources. It encourages lax fact checking from places like Google or Wikipedia. And it keeps us from getting out of our chairs and actually leaving the newsroom to report the story.

It’s almost mind boggling to think about how many journalists rely on Wikipedia for factual information. While it on some occasions can serve as a SMALL stepping stone, it is by no means a source. If you were writing a thesis and submitted your paper with Wikipedia as a source, you would get laughed out of the room while trying to do your defense. So why do so many journalists use it as a source for newspapers?

The best advice I’ve ever been given (for the purpose of journalism) is to get off my butt and leave the newsroom to find the best stories. While technology vastly improves our ability to get the story out quick and fact check efficiently, there is no question that you will get a better story if you actually leave the newsroom than if you stay sitting at your desk. In the age where technology is at our fingertips, we still need original and creative reporting- neither of which will come from staring at a computer screen.

So to answer the question- does technology harm or improve our ability to be ethical journalists- it does both.