Journalism as a Profession

Last November I did a feature story on the opening of the In-N-Out branch in Orem UT. It was one of my first broadcasting stories so I was extremely nervous yet excited to be finally involved in the "thick" of what I love. I arrived on scene, mini camera in hand, and shot hours of long lines, busy workers, and hungry customers (I'll admit, I was a little bit too thorough and it wasn't fun filtering through all of the video when it came time to edit). When it came time for my interview with the manager of the branch, he answered all of my questions sincerely and was extremely pleasant to work with. At the end of the interview he told me to wait around and he would "hook me up with a free meal of whatever I wanted." At first I was really excited to experience my first In-N-Out burger. As a Pennsylvania native this Western chain is Greek to me, and I was often treated like an outcast after telling people that I had never been to an In-N-Out before. So, I waited around for a little bit drooling at the thought of this coveted burger when all of a sudden my Code of Ethics finally kicked in: "Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity." (I guess you could say it was like one of those good angel, bad angel moments...)


In class we talked about journalists' roles as gatekeepers to society. Journalists have the responsibility of "deciding what is news and how it should be presented," therefore it is essential that they adhere to a code of ethics in order to keep facts straight and their personal opinion away from their stories (some disagree with the idea of journalists keeping their opinion out of the news).In addition, journalists today help to shape the worldview of people as they read the news because they are able to form opinions and take sides based on the facts and information that they read. While a free burger may seem (a probably would have been) harmless, it could been seen as a bribe or persuasion (unfortunately this still occurs in journalism throughout the world) for me to produce a better story on the restaurant. While I know this case is completely extreme, and my story would have favored In-N-Out regardless of the free food, I'm not a food critic, and I wasn't sent to taste the food. I was sent to report on the restaurant in order to inform people about the opening. So I guess it's no surprise that I took the burger... haha just kidding. I only awkwardly waited around for a little before triumphantly walking away. Moral of the story: I'm glad I stuck to the code of ethics, and I hope that I always do in my future journalistic endeavors.