Research Paper - Case Study Example

Fortunately or unfortunately, West contacted the boy and the conversations turned sexually explicit once the expert informed West that he had just turned 18 years old. As a consequence, three reporters wrote several stories concerning the West scandal. However, things did not turn out to be good on the side of West as he was forced to take a leave from office, and was charged, although the charges were dropped some two months later on the argument that the issue of limitations had expired. Several editors from spokesman-review posted several of private and sexually explicit web chats and emails involving West and the teenage boys.

Indeed, it is eminent that three online chats concerning the scandal were moderated by Steven Smith, who is mandated to oversee operations of the newspaper and website. Among other things, Smith and other editors posted hyperlinks that mentioned issues related to West, spokesman-review’s coverage and community members’ blogs on the matter. Views from other journal articles On his review on how journalist behaves, Brainard, (2012) argued that, media watchdog Jim Naureckas was right when he noted that journalism is one of other means of uncovering untold or unclear stories.

However, the worry is that people have stopped putting their whole trust on such stories due to concern about violation of journalism ethics. An example given by Brainard is the one involving deceptive and undercover reporting by Sun Times’ Tavern sting, whereby exposure of corruption deals by city inspectors was exposed, but failed to win a Pulitzer prize due to violation of journalism ethics (Brainard, 2012). In this regard, it is apparent that although journalist engage in such activities to uncover the untold stories, one thing that is evident is that media is there to exercise practices of showing the power of determining experiences of others.

To some extent, such actions like the once involving spokesman-review and West brings about concerns about journalism ethics and cyberspace ethics. For example, it is apparent that spokesman-review postings about West could have a lot of implications on West’s life. Journalism calls for integrity on their reporting. Matters involving private life are a bit sensitive. Although the legitimacy and legality of what a journalist publishes highly depends on the certainty and the level of investigation done, matters involving invasion of private life become sensitive (Whiteman, 2007).

For example, just because a journalist can pull up some information concerning a politician’s private life does not mean that is ethical practice. Some of the major areas of concern when such issue arise includes invasion of individual’s personal habits, medical condition, and sexual preferences, among others (Whiteman, 2007). In relation to cyberspace ethics, there are many issues surrounding what social sites regulations due to increased level of cyber crime and identity theft. Although famous social sites have facilitated and changed the way people interact, in the wake of these developments, several ethical issues have been of concern (Brainard, 2012).

In particular, it is apparent that ethics in cyberspace focuses on the consequences of certain interactions in the cyberspace. However, due to lack of international legal framework that defines cyberspace ethics, many of issues regarding what is ethical and what is not