This assignment is based on an interview with a practicing journalist. Your paper should examine an ethical dilemma this individual has faced in his/her professional life OR a legal situation they have come across, whether it would be a first amendment, libel, FOIA, etc. It should be between 600-800 words MAX. (video/audio—no more than 2 minutes).

For the ETHICS question, the relevant questions you should ask this journalist, which should be reflected (with the answers) in your paper are: 1.What was an important ethical situation you faced? 2.How did it present itself?3. What were the choices available to resolve the situation? 4.How did you weigh the pros and cons of your choices?5. Did your news organization have an ethics policy and how did it address this situation? 6.What was the impact of your decision? 7.Did the situation affect your view of the profession?8. Would you make the same decision today? Why or why not?

You should draw upon your readings and class discussions, and you should conclude whether the journalist and his/her editors acted appropriately and if there were any other facts, ideas or choices they should have considered. Errors of grammar, spelling, style, punctuation and fact will adversely affect your grade.

The interview I did with Alexander Ilitch, a reporter at WLNS
an important ethical situation that I most recently faced was when an MSU student had died from a medical issue during MSU welcome week. Because we were unsure at the time as to what exactly happened.. We had thought the cause was alcohol. The only information we were able to gather at the time was that she had died and was taken out of her house that she lived in. Our news crew was forced off the scene, so we didn’t have much to work on at the time. The next day I was forced to do a follow up story which meant I had to knock on the door of the house in which the girl was brought out of, and ask what exactly had happened. In this situation I felt uncomfortable, I felt like it was too soon, unethical, and insensitive. As an MSU alum I know how it feels to have roommates and to have something potentially happen to them. I stood outside of the house for about an hour.. just trying to think about what I would say to the roommates in the house.

3. The choices that I had available was to confront the situation in a sensitive way and approach it with caution. The best way to do this is to tell the roommates that we are sorry and to put the pieces of the puzzle back together. I knocked on the door and told the girl I was sorry.. I gave her my card and told her that if she wanted to contact me with information to remember the girl that died in a good way. The girl ended up talking with me and telling me what exactly happened and I was able to identify with the situation. We expressed our condolences and told her to let us know if there were any updates.

4. The pros and cons stemmed to what is right and what’s wrong. If someone had died in this situation, you have to be sensitive to how they feel by losing someone who may have been close to them. The cons were that I had to knock on the door and ask the roommates to tell me what happened to the girl. The con was that I was able to approach it in a sensitive and nice way that she didn’t necessarily feel disrespected or bothered. Also giving her my business card allowed her the access to talk to me after she was able to gather her emotions.

5. In our ethics policy I THINK it just says to approach this situations with caution and to be respectful but I am not sure for this.

6. after approaching this situation even though I felt very uncomfortable at the time, it taught me how to act for future situations. I know this will happen to me more and more as I move on throughout my career and this taught me how to approach such a situation like this. Even though it greatly impacted me, I would say it was both positive and negative,

7. this did not affect at all how I feel about being a news reporter. Part of my job is to do stories like this in order to inform the public. I knew going into this profession that I would face situations like these.

8. yes I would make the same decision today because I love what I do as a reporter and being able to reach out to families or friends during times like this is sometimes what needs to be done in order to make the public aware of both the positive and negative aspects of these situations. I have learned that I will have to do uncomfortable things like this in the future but it will make me a better reporter and a person overall by being faced with this.