Group Presentations: KC School Shooting Ethical Coverage-2

REVIEW the following material BEFORE working on this group assignment  (same groups as for NYU. NO PPT.  Simply discuss consensus, if any, on how your group as reporters would cover "breaking news" as detailed below.

Review Textbook relevant sections, i.e. Privacy, Conflicting Loyalties, Violence, 

REVIEW the Potter Box Model 

This ethical decision-making model was derived by Ralph Potter of the Harvard Divinity School. It includes four steps: 
(When reviewing these steps, think as a journalist does.)

▪    Define the situation (What are the facts?)

▪    Identify values (Professional, Cultural, Moral. Does it cause Harm?)

▪    Select principles (Ethical Philosophies you have studied)

▪    Choose loyalties (Public, Employer, Self)

Group Presentations: School Shooting in KC

Within your Group: Choose a high school, a church service or a event (concert, football, etc.)  in the metro area.  Create a fictitious storyline.

Organize & Divide Tasks: Explanation of events, Review of Potter Box and how it applies to your decision-making as reporters.

Include: Pointers, Analysis and Insights from relevant Textbook Chapters

There’s a shooting at a Kansas City area high school, church or local event, and you are TV/Digital Media reporter at the scene.  (Use the Potter box, information in textbook to explain your decisions.)

All we know is there could be massive fatalities, the school, church, synagoge, bar, movie theater, or site of event is on lockdown, police and SWAT teams are at the location.  A few people have escaped. You see several flee. Others are trapped. You hear repeated bursts of gunfire.  Police are not cooperating.

Parents, families, friends or relatives at the scene are hysterical.  Some tell you to stay the f*** away. One bystander (a distraught father) shouts “Why you motherf***, get the f*** out of here…  you S.O.B. You are nothing more than vultures”   (When you are a reporter long enough, verbal lashings like this are bound to happen. People sometimes react in hostile ways.)

What do you do? Whom do you talk to? What do you take images of? How do you report this?  Remember, you are there…events are unfolding and news is breaking.

By the way, your news director has already given you heat a number of times about your tardiness and not being “on top of a story.”  If you don’t bring back something, you could lose your job. In addition, an EMMY nomination could get you a better position somewhere else.  If you quit for "noble reasons," what are you going to do for a paycheck?  At the same time, consider the “value of restraint.”

Be prepared to present the Thursday after T-Day