Technology's just another tool

Technology, especially the Internet, poses new ethical issues in journalism. However, these issues are qualified by some of the advantages that technology can offer a journalist. The biggest technological ethical dilemma that faces the industry today is the temptation to cut corners. Everything is available so quickly, so easily online. Facts are at once quickly verifiable and yet, everything on the Internet is painted with a brush of unreliability. The question we have to ask ourselves is how much trust we want to put into internet sources. In addition, email and other messaging technologies pose their own sets of problems. How much credibility should we give to an interview if it is done electronically, without eye contact and body language feedback? In a worst case scenario, can we ever believe people are who they say they are online.
The example of the New York Times investigation into the online lives of gay teenagers was a complex one. It mixed all of the ingredients of an ethical dilemma and a good story: minors, the internet, sexual behavior and the scariest one of all for journalists: anonymity. The internet is replete with anonymous communication. Commentary on blogs, message board threads and topics, and messaging can all be done with screen names, nicknames or even fabricated names. When identities and communication on the Internet are so easily masked where are the lines between investigation, invasion and illusion marked?
This is not to say that technology does not present ethical solutions in journalism as well. Whether or not it is always reliable the Internet can also be looked at as just one more way to verify a fact. It is also another way to gather information, a very good one. It “broadens the net.” In a “big-picture” construct, the Internet is uniquely able to increase the number and type of voices that are able to participate in public debate. This is especially true with blogs, and certainly a reason for their appeal. There is a cost barrier associated with this otherwise equalizing characteristic of the Internet. Only those who can afford access get it. This is something that is currently tempered by the fact that computers are readily available in public libraries and other such places. Eventually, the technology will become something that everyone can afford, like a radio or landline phone.
It will require care and thought, but there is no reason why the desire to cut corners or mislead sources should be so great that technology erases all the ethical lessons from four years in journalism school. Technology certainly has many challenges to offer journalists. However, the good that technology brings outweighs all of its potential pitfalls. This is because while technology poses new and interesting ethical questions, these questions are still answered the same way they were in that long long ago before Bluetooth and blogging. We can answer new questions with the good old quest for transparency. The principle of public good outweighing private interest does not lose its meaning just because we are looking to message boards or using iChat.