Media has been the focus of the Humanities class I have been taking for the last eight weeks. A great deal of the discussion has centered on the Internet. Last week the we covered news media. This weeks discussions were on ethics. Everyone should be aware that more often the news comes to us with a generous helping of bias and opinion. This type of reporting is reserved for the more controversial subjects. Politics, war, policy, taxes, and environmental issues are rarely just the facts reporting. The Internet is a good place to find bias and opinion. So the question arises is the plain truth out there?
People from all walks of life from professional to obsessional have a blog. Every site on the web has a place for comments. People read these posts and many take them at face value. Meaning they never question the knowledge of the writer or their ethics. These are both important considerations, because their are people who are stealing the work of others. They post entire articles as their own without acknowledging the actual writer even once. As a student we learn that these practices are not just unethical but they are illegal. Copyrights are implied the minute the work is posted and no one has the right to use it without giving proper credit to the writer. Even then the use of the article in totality is wrong unless it is done through a direct link to the article or with the writer's permission. It is stealing folks and stealing is wrong. Think about it.
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