Question

The Objective of this exercise is to apply a systematic analysis of a real ethical dilemma.

Reporting on Robin Williams When actor Robin Williams took his life in August of 2014, major news organizations covered the story in great detail. Most major news outlets reported on Marin County Sheriff’s Lt. Keith Boyd’s press conference, which revealed graphic details from the coroner’s report about the methods Williams used. While there was great interest on the part of the public in finding out what happened, many argued that reporting too much detail about the suicide violated the family’s privacy. Indeed, many of Robin Williams’s fans posted on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks to express their objections to the media treatment of the suicide, urging reporters to respect the family’s right to grieve in peace. Several members of the mental health community also took issue with the detailed reports. Paul Farmer, chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, wrote to CNN that “When a media report describes clear details of unusual methods of suicide and essentially gives a “how to” guide—the danger is it can make suicide seem like a more accessible action to take.” Some journalists expressed similar viewpoints, criticizing the reports as a clear violation of media ethics. According to the Press Complaints Commission, “When reporting suicide, care should be taken to avoid excessive detail about the method used.” Yet other journalists argued that the primary responsibility of the media was to report the story truthfully and factually. In an op-ed in the LA Times, Andrew Klavan wrote, “The manner of Williams’ death is public information. Journalists should report it as long as it remains of interest to the public. It is not a journalist’s job to protect us from the ugly facts.” Klavan argued that the journalist’s duty is not to do good or be wise, but to report the whole story, which may in fact be a part of a larger story unfolding elsewhere. Sheriff Boyd similarly defended his own actions by stating that he had a duty to report the details as part of the public record. In an interview with Today, Williams’s daughter Zelda discussed how her father never sought to hide his problems, mentioning his openness about struggling with alcoholism. She stated, “I think that one of the things that is changing, that is wonderful, is that people are finally starting to approach talking about illnesses that people can’t immediately see…He didn’t like people feeling like the things that were hard for them they should go through alone.”

Discussion Questions

1. Systematic moral analysis (SMA) first requires identifying the problems in a situation. In this case, who was harmed and how? You may reference the list of moral rules in the transcript of the narration below.

2. The second step of SMA requires asking who is responsible. Is Sheriff Boyd responsible? The journalists? Anyone else? How do their role-related responsibilities relate to the harm caused?

3. Third in the process of SMA is to consider whether or not the action can be justified. Do you think the role-related responsibilities of Sheriff Boyd or the journalists justified their actions? Why or why not? What alternative ways of reporting Robin Williams’s suicide would have caused less harm?

4. Finally, if you had been in the position of Sheriff Boyd or the journalists, what do you think would have been the ethically ideal action to take?

Answer 1

1)

Right now was hurt right now, all relies upon how set we up are and our psyche is.We can make an environmental well of ethically determined virtual truthsin non consious memory to control our critical thinking and dynamic from the most elevated level of insight and knowing towards increasingly adjusted and in this manner progressively moral selves.

2)

I might want to help the possibility that there could be an all inclusive arrangement of organic reactions to moral issues, a kind of morals incorporated with our cerebrums. My expectation is that we before long have the option to reveal those morals, distinguish them and start to live more completely by them.

I accept we live by them generally unconsiously now, however a great deal of affliction, war, disarray, and clashes could be dispensed with on the off chance that we could consent to live by them all the more consiously.Our lives, and Journalism's lives rely upon it. Watchers and perusers merits and need it.

3)

Regardless of whether the watchers and perusers accomplish work through SMA for News report and picture of visual news-casting they are bound to recollect the substance of the story the manner in which it was confined in the photo than it was surrounded in the story.

We accept that Sheriff Boyd while acting with most elevated moral goals legitimized their instinctive reactions of worry through concious investigation unexpectedly acting unethically driving by the news report. Integrative brain and visual morals hypotheses persuade that Sheriff Boyd would have settled on a superior choice by respecting their natural reactions that the news strengthened negative impacts and damage as opposed to it passed on the significance of psychological well-being issue in todays world.

4)

A serviceable arrangement we believe is to prepare oneself in moral reflection, cautiously considering intense issues when time permits, in order to be more ready to react ethically as the situation requests.

Also, perusers and watchers only sometimes have the opportunity to work through the means of SMA for each and every news report they see.A serviceable arrangement is to assemble the investigation of morals and media into instructive frameworks inorder to upgrade the decisions of clients of contemperory media.

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