I'm not sure how much an audience plays a role in the ethics of such situations. It is popular belief that the majority of people don't know anything until they hear it from the news, which means in that case, that the audience's role is to listen to the newscaster. Thus, it is their role, also, to decide which side they are on. Thus, the newscasters or the newspaper writers have a job: convince the audience.As far as the ethics... newscaster and news journalists have a duty to tell people the truth, because they know they are the main source for information the population has. However, in order to get ahead of each other, they will tend to fudge numbers or use fallacies, such as ad hominem. Such tendencies are not ethical, people, by definition, a fallacy is unethical, because it is a deception, or deviation from the matter at hand.
I agree that news sources have an ethical duty to present an unbiased view of the truth, although that is becoming increasingly rare. In my opinion, and in a perfect world, newscasters and networks would not be trying to convince the audience one way or another. They would present the facts 'as is' and leave the rest up to the audience.
ReplyDeleteYes, you're completely right. It's sad that it's becoming more rare, but I also feel it is inevitable. Either way, it is morally wrong. Which just leads me to consider that the news is immoral, because they say whatever it takes to get viewers and funding.
DeleteI agree that the role of audience essentially is to listen to the information provided by different sources and evaluate them. However, you could have gone more in depth about what other roles, if there are any, the audience plays. Also, the last sentence did not make sense to me grammatically.
ReplyDeleteApologies, I think I copied a few words again by mistake. I'll revise it:
DeleteSuch tendencies are not ethical, people, by definition, a fallacy is unethical, because it is a deception, or deviation from the matter at hand.
What I mean to say:
Such tendencies are not ethical. A fallacy is unethical, because it is a deception, or deviation from the matter at hand.