Embedded Journalism and War Reporting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Embedded Journalism and War Reporting - Essay Example For example, in the situation of war, reporters may cause harm to the fighting forces by disclosing details regarding their location or by becoming a distraction for the fighting forces. The following paper evaluates the question whether reporters should be embedded alongside fighting forces. Ethics of Journalism and War Reporting The question whether something is ethical or not is gaining more and more popularity these days. With the advent of social media, people have access to so much detail regarding the circumstances of the world. The journalists who are active through social media seem to provide all the minor details to their followers notwithstanding the ethical aspect of such information. The line between what is professional journalism and what is not is getting thinner every day with even the most unnecessary reports being presented to the media consumers. Journalists seem to forget the ethical aspects of journalism when they report about someone’s personal issue. T here are numerous websites that provide real time news and most of those are run by credible organizations with genuine news sources. However, there are certain websites that wrongly use the freedom provided by the internet and they violate the ethical standards associated with the profession of journalism. The main role of the journalists is to provide the true facts and to help build new knowledge through imparting new information. However, there have been certain instances where misreporting has been done due to lack of credible news sources. This has often been observed in the case of war reporting. Due to lack of time and rigid deadlines, journalists usually rely on information provided by the authorities with access to the war zone and in such circumstances, whether the information is accurate cannot be completely assessed. There are a lot of ethical considerations related to war reporting as even the most minor misreporting may create dangerous circumstances. The dilemma asso ciated with this situation is that, if journalists are embedded to the fighting forces, they may give out more information that what is necessary and in such circumstances, violation of ethical considerations may result in harmful circumstances for both the journalists and the fighting forces. One of the most important ethical considerations to take into account while reporting the incidents during war is reporting that is free from any sort of bias. It has been observed that the journalists impart information that is clearly biased. The true facts are kept from the media consumers and they are provided a modified picture of the actual scenario. This is one of the most violated ethical considerations related to war reporting. Such reporting of modified facts can also worsen the situation of war because the opposing forces may be enraged by such acts of the journalists and any chances of compromise will be dimmed. In such a scenario, the integrity of the profession of journalism come s into question. Any acts of bias by the journalists may impact the overall profession of journalism. Therefore the question of ethical considerations takes a very serious turn with regard to war reporting. Journalists need to be sure that the information being imparted is precise and accurate and it does not disclose any confidential information. Journalists must also ensure that the sources from which the information is