Editorial: Pushing our ethical boundaries
May 22, 2015
A 21-year-old college student “SugarBaby” goes on dates with her 46-year-old “SugarDaddy” in return for approximately $1000 — for her college debt.
Eleven educators in Atlanta changed over 250,000 wrong answers on students’ standardized tests since 2001 — leading to charges of racketeering when their students couldn’t meet the numerical standards — for their jobs.
Tom Brady, who holds the highest winning percentage of the top 50 quarterbacks and counts the most wins in NFL history, is suspended this month for his involvement in “Deflategate.” Deflated footballs gave the Patriots a better grip in the cold winter air, and an edge in the AFC Championship game — for one more win.
An award-winning reporter cuts corners on fact-checking and sourcing, leading to the retraction of a rape-culture story published in the pages of Rolling Stone — for the story.
Are we compromising our integrity for a goal we will never obtain?
Pushing boundaries to break new ground — it’s what sets apart the people who make history from those who wait for it. But when the “stretch” of our ethical boundaries becomes too thin, are we compromising our integrity for a goal we will never obtain?
As we stretch our arms further and further, we cross the line between drive and the detrimental effects of overextending oneself. Inordinate expectations bring overwhelming pressure. Out of desperation, students go to great lengths to fund their futures.
Over the past few years, the trend of college students relying on sugar dating sites increased dramatically, with college students making up 44 of the “SugarBabies” in the site’s database. In the search for money, these students are thrust outside their comfort zones in a detrimental way.
This bleeds into high school life as well, albeit in a very different context. In an educational environment like our own, students often feel an ever-present pressure to meet increasingly higher expectations, begetting student-run cheating rings. The temptation to cheat in schools across the country is widespread, among students and faculty.
Instead of genuinely trying to educate and help their students, educators in Atlanta chose an easy alternative. Under pressure, they ignored their duty to educate students and disregarded their responsibility as role models.
Any high-stakes, competitive environment is overwhelming. It exhausts our drive, leaving us susceptible to breaching our own ethics.
The culture of competitive sports continues to evolve into an environment governed by the prospect of hefty endorsements or making the front cover of Sports Illustrated. Athletes and coaches lose sight of the true purpose of playing the game: to celebrate human athleticism through sentiments of teamwork, sacrifice and perseverance. These attitudes are prevalent today; the immense pressure to succeed, along with the lurking temptations of using performance-enhancing drugs, has brainwashed athletes from the high school to professional level not just to win, but to win at all costs.
The qualities of teamwork, bonding and self-sacrifice to achieve a collaborative goal are all aspects that constantly draw us back to the world of sports. Looking past the pressure, athletes need to be reminded of their original passion and love for the game.
The media, or even journalism itself, is a labor of love, certainly. That love keeps newsrooms humming with action and reporters grasping for the stories worth telling.
Reporters letting that zeal cloud their judgement cripples the credibility of all journalists, especially when those gaffes come from a name as recognizable as Rolling Stone. Recently, a piece titled “A Rape on Campus,” describing the alleged rape of a University of Virginia student at a frat party, came under close scrutiny because of inconsistencies found in the story of the survivor.
The writer, Sabrina Erdely, began to backtrack on parts of the story she published, and an investigation conducted by the Columbia School of Journalism concluded that mistakes in the reporting and editing process of Rolling Stone led to a “failure that was avoidable.”
Posts flooded the Internet. The “failure” went viral. But at the same time, no one bothered to think of how we aggravated the situation. We, as the public, fed and nurtured the monster. We are the monster of the media.
We are the monster of the media.
There’s no doubt that the blunders stemmed partly from Erdely’s personal concern for the issue and her need to amplify the easily-silenced voices of assault survivors. But she only harmed the very people she was trying to help. Erdely’s breaches of journalistic ethics and Rolling Stone’s lack of action in amending their editing process only compromises the voices of assault survivors and the credibility of journalists.
At the time, it can seem like the ends justify the means. We all intend for the best, one way or another; we all have passion and drives that can be overwhelming. However, the cost of going past the boundaries and the price one must pay for tasting danger can be too much.
Protected by our computer screens, we can look at magazines and newspapers and easily critique the flaws in their reporting — and laugh as they pay the consequences. It’s easy to decry the mistakes of the mainstream media, but the media is what the public makes of it. What we post, tweet and reblog shapes the world as we know it. We are the media. If we want to change what we see in print and hear about online in our future, we are the change that must happen today.
This article was originally published in the pages of Wingspan, Issue 2, Vol. 1 on May 23, 2015.