Marcus:  For most ethical dilemmas the journalist is likely to face, traditional journalistic ethics is clear, adequa...

Anita June 19, 2018

@Zara B tells us Marcus is wrong for saying most ethical dilemmas can be solved by traditional journalistic ethics. It’s hard to tell if Anita is saying he is wrong about that, so much as that she’s clarifying that in the cases where it’s necessary to make a decision, the guidelines are inadequate. He may be right about most cases, but Anita is talking about when journalists have to determine what’s newsworthy in the first place.

Remone-Davis January 18, 2019

Can you please explain this a little better.?I still don't understand

Ravi February 13, 2019

@Remone-Davis,

Great question. Let's first take a look at the stimulus.

Marcus opens by stating that when a journalist has an ethical dilemma
(problem), the journalist simply needs to consider traditional
journalistic ethics, as these ethics will solve the problem. Marcus
gives the example that when a journalist has found out about a hot,
new story, she needs to take it to the press ASAP. Marcus says it's
not cool to just sit on the story because of personal or professional
concerns.

Anita responds to Marcus by stating that of course, making interesting
and important information available to the public is part of a
journalist's job. However, she adds, the advice Marcus has given
doesn't help in the typical case. She provides the example of when a
journalist has hot, new information but doesn't know if it's truly
newsworthy.

The question says, "The point made by Anita’s statements is most
accurately expressed by which one of the following?"

Anita's response tells us that she doesn't think Marcus's advice is
adequate in typical cases. The main idea of her response is that she
doesn't think that Marcu's advice applies to the typical kind of
dilemma a journalist faces in not knowing whether a piece of
information is newsworthy or not. Since this question is asking us for
the main point of Anita's statements, we're looking for an answer that
says this that she doesn't think that Marcu's advice applies to the
typical kind of dilemma a journalist faces in not knowing whether a
piece of information is newsworthy or not.

(A) says, "Marcus’ claim that traditional journalistic ethics is clear
for most ethical dilemmas in journalism is incorrect."

From the stimulus, we know that Anita doesn't think that Marcus's
advice is very helpful in the typical cases of journalism. And
although she states that it does not help with the normal type of
dilemma that a journalist faces, she never states whether or not those
types of dilemmas are ethical ones. As a result, since this is
descriptively inaccurate, we can get rid of (A).

(B) says, "A typical case illustrates that Marcus is wrong in claiming
that traditional journalistic ethics is essentially correct for most
ethical dilemmas in journalism."

The problem with (B) is that Anita doesn't ever challenge whether or
not traditional journalistic ethics is correct. Rather, Anita simply
doesn't think that traditional journalistic ethics helps in a typical
case. Therefore, we can get rid of (B).

(C) says, "The ethical principle that Marcus cites does not help the
journalist in a typical kind of situation in which a decision needs to
be made."

(C) does an excellent job paraphrasing the main point of Anita's
statements. Marcus's statements are, according to Anita, obvious.
However, they do not help with the typical cases of journalistic
dilemmas that journalists face. This is the correct answer choice.

(D) states, "There are common situations in which a journalist must
make a decision and in which no principle of journalistic ethics can
be of help."

The issue with (D) is that Anita never rules out all ethical
principles; rather, she simply states that the traditional
journalistic ethics that Marcus references aren't usually helpful in
typical journalistic cases. As a result, we can get rid of (D).

(E) says, "Traditional journalistic ethics amounts to no more than an
unnecessarily convoluted description of the journalist’s job."

The problem with (E) is that Anita never states that that traditional
journalistic ethics is convoluted. She only thinks that Marcus's point
about newsworthy information going public is obvious. Since Anita
never discusses traditional journalistic ethics as unncessarily
convoluted, we can get rid of this choice.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!