David Craig

This study explores the development of moral identity and value systems among entry-level media workers during the formative period of emerging adulthood. Thematic analysis of extensive “life story” structured interviews with newly minted graduates of five journalism and communications programs in the United States (N = 108) focused on responses to specific interview queries regarding ethical challenges. Key themes of challenges involved autonomous agency, transparency/honesty, fairness/justice, ethical cues and modeling, and professional norms and expectations. The analysis suggests patterns in participants’ reliance on a mixture of past experiences, college lessons, and moral principles. These patterns also suggest participants reflected varying levels of moral self-efficacy.

This longitudinal study examines changes in the moral identity of 48 emerging-adult U.S. college graduates in media-related fields from their first year after college to three years later as they progressed into early work life. Results from four moral psychology survey instruments reflect significant shifts in moral reasoning, relativistic thinking and idealism, coupled with stability in personality traits and character strengths. A fifth instrument found largely positive assessments of workplace ethical climate. The findings suggest that emerging adulthood is an important time for the development of a robust professional moral self that is characterized by growing maturity in moral judgment that intersects with a foundation of character developed through a variety of influences before, during and after college. Findings have significant implications for young practitioners entering the workplace, media managers working with them, and media pedagogy.

This article explores the opportunities and challenges of using journalistic exemplars in the digital network to explicate intellectual virtues necessary for flourishing in that network. It seeks to advance media ethics theorizing by drawing together exemplar-based virtue theory, specifically Zagzebski’s Exemplarist Moral Theory, and work on intellectual virtues, in particular Baehr’s delineation of nine intellectual virtues. After a description of theoretical foundations, this article articulates an approach to identifying and explicating intellectual virtues through journalistic exemplars in the digital network. It then applies this approach to the work of two journalists who have frequently and thoughtfully used social media. This exploratory analysis suggests the proposed approach holds promise for explication of individual virtues and identification of patterns among them. The approach also carries challenges and limitations, partly related to the nature and scope of virtual evidence for enactment of virtues by journalists. The authors suggest future research to minimize these limitations and continue advancing theorizing within this framework.

The rapid growth of online media has led to new complications in journalism ethics and practice. While traditional ethical principles may not fundamentally change when information is disseminated online, applying them across platforms has become more challenging as new kinds of interactions develop between journalists and audiences. In Ethics for Digital Journalists, Lawrie Zion and David Craig draw together the international expertise and experience of journalists and scholars who have all been part of the process of shaping best practices in digital journalism. Drawing on contemporary events and controversies like the Boston Marathon bombing and the Arab Spring, the authors examine emerging best practices in everything from transparency and verification to aggregation, collaboration, live blogging, tweeting and the challenges of digital narratives. At a time when questions of ethics and practice are challenged and subject to intense debate, this book is designed to provide students and practitioners with the insights and skills to realize their potential as professionals.

Virtue ethics, a topic of growing interest in media ethics and philosophy more broadly, poses challenges for classroom instruction because it is rooted in long-term development of character. This article explores approaches for incorporating virtue into media ethics instruction and assessing associated student learning, based on an analysis of how students in a journalism ethics class demonstrated their understanding and application of virtues through activities tailored to virtue ethics. The analysis, in addition to suggesting the value of assignments such as an exemplar paper for learning and assessment, highlights several challenges instructors should consider in both teaching and evaluating virtue instruction.

In this article I use a case study of 3 newspaper pieces about assisted suicide and euthanasia to show how journalists can use analysis and commentary to highlight the ethical dimension of an important public issue. Using an approach grounded in ethical theory, I examine how these pieces-from the Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times-shed light on ethical issues including matters of duties and consequences. It is argued that an analytical approach that openly frames a topic as having a moral dimension is particularly appropriate for ethics coverage in light of the value-laden nature of writing about ethics.

Although recent scholarship in diverse professional areas shows an ongoing interest in the application of agape - the New Testament's term for the highest order of self-giving love - no published work has made an in-depth exploration of agape in relation to journalism. This article explores what agape can contribute to media theory and practice. After explaining what distinguishes agape from other concepts of altruism and how agape can complement other approaches to compassion or minimizing harm, the analysis turns to three questions raised by applying agape to mainstream journalism: (a) Does agape have a place for self-interest? (b) What does agape imply for notions of journalistic neutrality? (c) Can agape speak to journalists who don't accept its religious roots? Agape provides a test case for the application of religiously based ethical perspectives to journalism.

On the basis of examples from mathematical physics, theoretical hypotheses are distinguished from generative theories. An example of the former is Green’s claim that light is the vibrations of a certain type of elastic solid. An example of the later is the wave theory of light. Both hypotheses and theories are characterized in terms of theoretical principles and models, but unique to a theory is a language frame for generating its many models. The aim of theory is defined in terms of both accommodating nature and unifying nature through assimilation. The structure and use of generative theories closely resembles the structure of paradigms and their use in normal science [Kuhn 1970].