The ethics of a business can be summarized in (cough)

After going through the class I found a couple of interesting case studies.

The first was under Privacy and was entitled, "Naming a Rape Victim." In this case study a child abducted while walking home. The news media covered this story heavily and released the name and photo of the victim. Two days later, the girl was able to escape her captor and was reunited with her family. Again the news media covered this story heavily as well. Two days after this, the abductor was found and charged with sexual assault.

The debate in this issue comes from the fact that the victims name and photo was released to the public.

I know it is a general rule that when a rape victim comes forward, you are not to release their name but, I feel, this instance is different. How many times does a child get kidnapped in Kansas and the Amber Alert system is activated? This system shows the name and picture of the victim. If, days later, the child is found to be a rape victim, their image and name have been all over the news.

Its a matter of balancing privacy with effectiveness in finding the child at all. If we withhold the information and the child is never found, in my opinion, we have lost more. If the child is found but the world knows they were sexually assaulted, I think that is less of an issue. At least the child was rescued from a terrible situation.

Another excellent section covered the Source/Reporter Relationship. I had often wondered exactly how media outlets could get away with using antonymous sources. I now see that it truly puts the reputation of the media outlet at risk.

The case study I liked in this section was about Ricky Williams. It details the media feeding frenzy that ensued after "sources" revealed that Williams had violated the NFL's substance abuse policy for a fourth time. Several media outlets jumped on the story, none of them revealing any sources. This story circled the entire US completely unattributed. Even a managing editor from the Sun-Sentinel stated "Looking back, I'm not sure we needed the column. It feels way too speculative." Obviously she feels that publishing this story was a mistake. I tend to agree. If a source is not willing to put their name on the line, where is their skin in the game? I could tell you that my place of work lost $500 million dollars yesterday but if I want my name to remain private, whats to stop me from making it all up? (By the way they didn't lose $500 million).

I feel that if a source isn't willing to put their name on the line then their information isn't news.