Media ehtics in a wild and untamed terrain, known as the internet

Next class assignment for digital media class: blog about the ethically challenging scenario posed by the professor.

Said ethically challenging scenario: Should I or should I not, as a hypothetically respectable journalist both in print and online, include the link to a child pornography website that divulged the name of a hypothetical CU professor who was listed as a frequent client to that site?

Answer: Absolutely not.

According to our class reading this week by Foust, the Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act of 1996 because the restrictions (which were similar to the restrictions put on broadcast content) were over broad. Thus, an Internet site only with indecent content would not likely be regulated, which is a significant fact for pornography sites.

However, child pornography is an entirely different game. It is considered obscene material and, just as with both print and broadcast media, is prohibited. Journalists in this case are not only charged with the ethical dilemma of whether or not linking to a controversial site furthers journalistic integrity through transparency or whether it contributes to the dissemination of decidedly inappropriate material. By linking to this site, journalists are putting their readers in legal danger. Child pornography is one of the most closely-monitored activities in the media industry, with some of the harshest and most unforgiving consequences.

Regardless of whether a reader of the news site simply wanted to view the source of the story, law enforcement and others would have no way of proving it. Journalists have a binding responsibility to their readers -- and in this case, that responsibility is to keep their readers uninvolved in a highly illegal activity. The sacrifice of not showing a transparent source here is worth not taking the risk.

While journalists are not responsible for the content on the pornography site itself, the Supreme Court has established precedent against linking to illegal material, such as providing a link to the DeCSS program, which gave users information on how to illegally copy DVDs (a practice which was prohibited in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Linking to child pornography puts journalists in an equal, if not heavier, position of responsibility to exclude any kind of link that might lead their readers astray and toward an illegal activity.

To conclude: Sure, some things are more questionable when it comes to linking. As posed in the readings, what should a journalist do when faced with the decision to include a link to a white supremacist group? A whole extra set of equality and fairness balance comes into play.

But when the question is boiled down to one of illegal activity, providers of news can follow the rule that they never want to be responsible for making their readers a part of the next morning's headline.