Deck 17: Ethics

Question 1

Why did investigative reporter Jim DeFede get fired?

A) He wrote a false story.
B) He fabricated facts from a story.
C) He illegally taped a telephone conversation.
D) He didn't check sources.

Answer 1

He illegally taped a telephone conversation.

Question 2

The earliest mass media code of ethics was from the

A) National Association of Broadcasters.
B) American Society of Newspaper Editors.
C) Radio-Television News Directors Association.
D) Public Relations Society of America.

Answer 2

American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Question 3

People who believe that if they follow the rules their decision will be the correct one are

A) pragmatists.
B) situational ethicists.
C) being self-delusional..
D) practicing prescriptive ethics.

Answer 3

practicing prescriptive ethics.

Question 4

What ethical dilemma arises when reporters place too high a priority on timeliness?

A) One news organization may get an exclusive scoop, leaving the competitors in the dust.
B) Stories may be delayed.
C) Special bulletins may have to be published.
D) Accuracy may be jeopardized.

Question 5

All ethics are based on a perceived sense of duty, but media ethics are complicated because communicators have multiple sets of duties that include all of the following EXCEPT a

A) duty to the audience.
B) duty to the profession.
C) duty to report.
D) duty to society.

Question 6

Grappling with media ethics can be very challenging because communicators have multiple sets of duties and obligations that include all of the following EXCEPT a

A) duty to the audience.
B) duty to dignity.
C) duty to employer.
D) duty to self.

Question 7

A reporter who accepts an all-expense-paid cruise on a company's latest ship and then writes a story on the experience for the travel section, may have been motivated by a sense of

A) duty to self
B) duty to audience
C) duty to employer
D) duty to society

Question 8

Television programs that reenact violence are very popular. In programs like this, the producers are observing their duty to

A) self.
B) the supreme being.
C) their employer.
D) their audience.

Question 9

How does Charles Gay argue that publishing the names of rape victims is "good, basic journalism?"

A) Readers want to know.
B) Silence and secrecy perpetuate stigmas.
C) Names sell newspapers.
D) It's not against the law.

Question 10

Those who objected to the Shelton, Washington Journal's decision to include the names of rape victims in news stories about the rapes included all of the following EXCEPT

A) defense attorneys who fear it will prompt false reports from women who want media exposure .
B) other journalists who withhold names because of the social stigma attached to being raped.
C) prosecutors who claim other victims won't report being raped for fear of being publicly named.
D) state legislators who tried to enact a law to shield rape victims from being named.

Question 11

A reporter relying on press releases produced by public relations professionals needs to be aware that

A) they are the most common sources of plagiarism.
B) they are rarely useful for anything more than filler.
C) it is difficult to attribute them to a specific source.
D) they are prepared to promote something in particular and are likely biased.

Question 12

Aristotle believed that morally right decisions

A) avoid extremes and seek moderation.
B) promote democracy.
C) ensure the happiness of most people.
D) have universal application.

Question 13

To whom can the Golden Mean be traced?

A) Aristotle
B) Immanuel Kant
C) John Milton
D) John Dewey

Question 14

The "do-unto-others" principle is based on

A) Buddhism.
B) Judeo-Christian ethics.
C) Aristotle's Golden Mean.
D) Socrates moral imperative.

Question 15

Immanuel Kant believed that morally right decisions

A) are made with the idea of "do unto others" in mind.
B) embrace moderation.
C) make the most people possible happy.
D) should be made as if according to a universal law.

Question 16

Who devised the categorical imperative?

A) Aristotle
B) Immanuel Kant
C) Karl Marx
D) Robert Hutchins

Question 17

A radio station owner who bans all music whose lyrics include explicit sexual language is

A) applying the Golden Mean..
B) employing utilitarian ethics.
C) thinking situationally.
D) using a categorical imperative.

Question 18

A radio station owner who invites listeners to call in and vote on which music should be kept off the air and then bans the most-mentioned songs for her station is

A) applying the Golden Mean..
B) employing utilitarian ethics.
C) thinking situationally.
D) using a categorical imperative.

Question 19

The principle of utility most closely parallels the democratic principle of

A) life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
B) one person, one vote.
C) innocent until proven guilty.
D) majority rule.

Question 20

John Stuart Mill believed that morally right decisions

A) were those that promoted democracy.
B) resulted in happiness for as many people as possible.
C) conformed to religious doctrine.
D) avoid extremes.

Question 21

A problem with pragmatic ethics is

A) racial bias inevitably gets in the way.
B) people don't know if their moral actions will have good results.
C) possible harm done to the silent majority.
D) well-meaning people may disagree on what's best.

Question 22

The veil of ignorance

A) allows reporters to get away with plagiarism.
B) protects journalists that accept gifts.
C) allows one to judge a decision by its results.
D) is a key part of egalitarian moral decision-making.

Question 23

Believing that the killing of a small child in a poor urban area deserves the same journalistic attention as the killing of a small child in a rich suburban area is an example of

A) a pragmatic ethic.
B) a utilitarian ethic.
C) an egalitarian ethic.
D) the Golden Mean.

Question 24

The Hutchins Commission recommended that journalists and other media people use

A) an Aristotelian system of ethics.
B) a deontological system of ethics.
C) a pragmatic system of ethics.
D) a social responsibility system of ethics.

Question 25

Arguing that people act morally when they follow good rules is

A) pragmatic theory.
B) utilitarian theory.
C) social-responsibility theory.
D) deontological ethics.

Question 26

Which of the following is deontological?

A) Situational ethics
B) Social responsibility theory
C) Utilitarian theory
D) Categorical imperative theory

Question 27

When decisions are based on the expectation of having good consequences or positive results, the decision-maker is using

A) teleological ethics.
B) the divine right of kings.
C) the theory of secular command.
D) libertarian theory.

Question 28

What flaw do teleologists observe in deontological thinking?

A) People have imperfect foresight.
B) Great harm can flow from blind allegiance to rules.
C) Deontologists operate without guiding principles.
D) Deontologists rely too heavily on the facts of a situation.

Question 29

The major approaches to ethics described in your book are deontological, teleological and

A) prudential.
B) codian.
C) effervescent.
D) situational.

Question 30

A major criticism of situational ethics is that

A) they do not offer flexibility in morally ambiguous situations.
B) they essentially require people to predict the future.
C) they remove the power of decision-making from the individual.
D) they leave one prone to flip-flopping on moral issues.

Question 31

A useful four-quadrant model that can be used for sorting through ethical problems is

A) Four-square ethics.
B) Situational ethics.
C) a Potter's Box.
D) a SWOT analysis.

Question 32

Which of the following is NOT a quadrant of Potter's Box?

A) Loyalties
B) Values
C) Outcomes
D) Principles

Question 33

In using Potter's Box, dealing with the quadrant for "situation" involves

A) imposing values.
B) agreeing upon principles.
C) applying the loyalties.
D) selecting the facts.

Question 34

Which of the following is NOT a function of sorting through the "values" quadrant in Potter's Box?

A) identifying underling values
B) matching values to available choices
C) identifying moral principles associated with the values
D) listing the positive and negative values

Question 35

Potter's Box

A) provides clear-cut answers.
B) provides no answers, just a process to guide a decision.
C) offers practical solutions.
D) has been disproven as an effective tool.

Question 36

Failing to examine and reexamine accepted practices leads to

A) situational ethics.
B) reliance on habits rather than principles.
C) utilitarianism.
D) ignoring the needs of individuals.

Question 37

What is prudence?

A) extreme caution
B) reliance on principles
C) applying wisdom to a situation
D) upholding a categorical imperative

Question 38

What is plagiarism?

A) drawing on work in the public domain
B) quotations from a book in a book review
C) using dialogue clips to promote a film
D) using someone else's creative work without permission or credit

Question 39

Which journalistic practice comes close to crossing the line into plagiarism?

A) quoting liberally from a speech delivered by a politician
B) quoting extensively in a review
C) showing a clip in a movie review on television
D) institutionalized exchange of stories

Question 40

Which of the following is most likely considered an accidental source of plagiarism?

A) swapping stories
B) PR-generated material
C) monitoring the competition
D) subliminal memory

Question 41

Janet Cooke, a reporter at the Washington Post, fabricated a story about an

A) 82-year-old Alzheimer's patient.
B) 8-year-old drug addict.
C) 18-year-old prostitute.
D) 18-year-old drug dealer.

Question 42

Why is staged news a less significant ethics question for publicists than for journalists?

A) By definition, publicists are amoral.
B) Staged news is always free from bias.
C) Staged news is creative, and ethics never enters into creative works.
D) Publicists generally are up-front about what they are doing.

Question 43

Which of the following is NOT an example of misrepresentation?

A) junkets
B) staging news
C) selective editing
D) re-creations

Question 44

Media professionals justify re-creations as

A) more costly than on-scene reporting.
B) helping people quickly understand the situation.
C) an exciting diversion from their daily drudgery.
D) time-savers that free them to cover more important stories.

Question 45

Selective editing is

A) making editorial choices with the moral outcome of the decisions in mind.
B) using omission and/or juxtaposition with the goal of distorting.
C) the use of PR events in place of real news.
D) carefully weeding out the falsehoods and misleading facts while editing a story.

Question 46

Upton Sinclair's book, The Brass Check, examined

A) corruption in the banking industry.
B) difficulties in getting financial assistance in the early 1900s.
C) dangerous flaws in large factories' safety procedures.
D) newsroom corruption, such as bribes.

Question 47

A free trip abroad for a journalist is known as

A) a perk of the profession.
B) promotional consideration.
C) an appearance of propriety.
D) a junket.

Question 48

What is a typical journalistic justification for taking freebies?

A) Perks offset slave wages.
B) Journalists deserve freebies for writing what people want.
C) Journalists deserve freebies for favors to people they write about.
D) Access to some subjects is too expensive for a newsroom budget.

Question 49

What is a counterargument to the journalistic practice of accepting freebies?

A) Freebies are unfair because the general public has to pay to do the same thing.
B) A news organization shouldn't be in business if it can't afford to pay its own way.
C) Giving and accepting freebies is like prostitution.
D) The salary of anyone accepting freebies should be taxed.

Question 50

Despite firing reporter Jim DeFede for collecting information by illegally recording a source, the Miami Herald still used the information to generate a story.

Question 51

The American Society of Newspaper Editors created the first mass media ethics code.

Question 52

Mass-media ethics codes anticipate all moral questions.

Question 53

Mass media organizations use codes of ethics to determine how practitioners should go about their work.

Question 54

Mass media professionals draw on consistent moral principles and discard those that are inconsistent.

Question 55

Following rules to make morally right decisions is prescriptive ethics.

Question 56

Prescriptive ethics assumes that a code of ethics can offer all the answers.

Question 57

Respect for privacy is common in ethics codes.

Question 58

Timeliness is a NOT a virtue in most news ethics codes.

Question 59

Media ethics can be confusing because communicators have sometimes conflicting duties to their audiences, their employers, their profession, their society, and themselves.

Question 60

NOT producing a story that puts your newspaper's parent company in bad light would seem to be primarily based on a sense of duty to self.

Question 61

Newspaper editor Charlie Gay refuses to name victims of all crimes, not just sexual-assaults, because he says naming people without permission is an invasion of privacy.

Question 62

Some critics of the Shelton, Washington Journal's decision to include the names of victims in news stories about rapes included journalists who withhold the names of rape victims because of the social stigma attached to being raped.

Question 63

Objections to the Journal's decision to name the victims in news stories about rapes came from defense attorneys who fear the chance to some publicity will inspire "crazies who like getting their name in the paper" to falsely report being raped.

Question 64

Ethically, the media should feel an obligation to live up to whatever public image they have tried to present of themselves.

Question 65

The audience has ethical expectations of mass media, which complicates attempts to craft a one-size-fits-all ethics code.

Question 66

Immanuel Kant devised the Golden Mean for moral decision-making.

Question 67

The broadcasting Equal Time Rule gives an advantage to concise candidates but not necessarily more qualified candidates.

Question 68

The Judeo-Christian principle of "Do unto others" is a problem-free prescription for mass media professionals.

Question 69

The categorical imperative is associated mostly with Aristotle.

Question 70

Immanuel Kant believed in hard thinking, not ethical codes.

Question 71

The principle of utility most closely parallels the democratic principle of majority rule.

Question 72

Pragmatic ethics emphasize that moral decisions must be made without consideration of the result.

Question 73

The veil of ignorance means making decisions with no regard to extraneous factors that could affect the decision.

Question 74

The Hutchins Commission studied television news in the 1970s.

Question 75

The Hutchins Commission recommended journalists make decisions that serve the society responsibly.

Question 76

Deontological ethics believe that if one identifies moral rules, they provide all the answers for right living.

Question 77

The theory of the divine right of kings is an example of teleological ethics.

Question 78

Pragmatic ethics are a teleological approach.

Question 79

In reporting that a model citizen had served time for multiple murders many years earlier, editors at the Rocky Mountain News employed situational ethics.

Question 80

Situational ethics means that all situations can be placed into categories for which strict rules can provide the answer.