The course on ethics has been eye opening to say the least
and applying it to a career in sports media will be incredibly tricky. In fact, I am not sure at this point that I
will continue a career in sports media without considerable soul searching and
or selling out. However, I will say I
worked harder in this class than any other, and maybe that’s just what the sports
world needs.
The article, Why Our
Moral Compass is More Flexible Than an Olympic Gymnast by Wertheim and
Sommers is particularly revealing. The
authors start with an example of Red Sox fans who are booing Alex Rodriguez for
his steroid use but seemingly giving David Ortiz, a Red Sox player linked to
steroids, a pass. The article then
references multiple behavioral studies which focus on morality in groups and
how our moral failures are viewed.
As Wertheim concludes, “We’re willing to excuse moral failures so long
as they belong to members of our team.”
This will be something I will have to consider once I find work in the
sports media world. But exactly whose
team am I on?
If you are working on the
broadcast operations of the Red Sox it is easy to give your guy a pass. If you listen to any game in the country on
any given night, the home team announcers will go a little bit softer on their
guy as opposed to a player on the opposite team. However, what if your organization is acting
unethically? An employee at NBC will
have to weigh working on the Olympics broadcast with the fact that the network
is funding the Olympic executives more than anyone else. According to Hobson, “by the
time that flood of cash flows through the Movement and reaches the athletes,
barely a trickle remains, often a few thousand dollars at most.” This creates an ethical dilemma in me that is
yet to be solved. I personally, I am not
one to support the financial and political elite but those are the groups who seem to benefit the most from the Olympic cash flow.
Although the ethical
conundrum surrounding the Olympics can be related to greed, it is a different
situation when the lives of others are dramatically affected by the unethical
actions of a select few. In the article Crisis Communication in Sports
Organizations, Billings et al review multiple cases which largely focus on
an athlete’s or organization’s denial and eventual admission to wrong
doing. One of the cases mentioned is of
former Penn St defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who would eventually be
convicted on 45 child abuse counts.
Football coach Joe Paterno and several high ranking administrators where
dismissed by the school’s Board of Trustees when the charges came to
light. As Billings mentions regarding
the case, “While Paterno did report the initial incidents that were witnessed
by an assistant football coach in 1999, the university’s administration failed
to follow the necessary procedures to ensure the safety of children.” As I review this case it becomes one of the
vary cut and dry answers for reviewing ethical behavior. If I had been employed by the university’s
athletic department I would absolutely go to the police with any knowledge of a
sexual or violent crime being committed.
In the article entitled
The Moral Case Against Contemporary American Sports, author William Morgan
argues that “American sports are in dire moral straights today.” Morgan reviews both professional and
collegiate sports in his brief, even stating that collegiate sports are “driven
by the same market imperatives.”
According to Morgan, these imperatives are corporate sponsorships,
public financing, licensing fees and televisions contracts among others. As I begin my possible career into sports
media, the medium of television is massive.
One area of scrutiny from Morgan is what he calls the “outrage
industry,” which is evidenced in such ESPN talk shows such as Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn and First Take.
These shows feature print and media “journalists” (quotations added
by me not Morgan) arguing back and forth with what has been affectionately
known as the “hot take.” As Morgan describes, “once such commentators
found out that there was plenty of money to be made by delivering thoughtless,
scandalous, off-the-cuff pronouncements about sports… they gladly gave up the
hard work of moral criticism.” These
types of TV shows dominate the sports networks when there isn’t an actual game
on. However, this is not something I
aspire to be in the sports media world.
I personally don’t believe it is ethical to argue a point, just for the
sake of arguing if you don’t necessarily believe it, but that is exactly what
these journalists are doing. The real
question is: who is watching this?
This brings me to the
article entitled “The Process of Making Morally Reasoned Decisions in Sports”
by Lumpkin and et al. This particular
article has had the greatest impact on what I will take away from this
course. Specifically, the moral values
listed in the article are applicable to any position in sports media whether it
be a reporter, TV personality, public relations person or marketing
executive. The three moral values
outlined, justice, honesty and beneficence describe the essence of acting with
integrity. Lumpkin describes honesty as
“the condition or capacity of being truthful of trustworthy in dealing with
others.” Does the hot take analyst take
this into consideration when fabricating an argument for ratings and decibel
levels? Do the baseball teams act
honestly when they manipulate municipalities into paying for new stadiums with
idle threats of relocation? Did Tom
Brady know about the balls being deflated?
These same questions can
be applied to beneficence, which Lumpkin describes as “the condition of (A) not
doing harm, (B) preventing harm, (C) removing harm and (D) doing good. In my opinion, the hot take analyst, the baseball
team and a possible rules cheat would not measure up. This is where things get murky for me. Is there any honesty in sports? I know in my mind I would be taking these
moral codes and applying them to all of my decision making and to the decisions
made by the organizations and athletes I’d be covering. It seems it will by my duty to bring ethics
and morality to an industry that seems to be grossly lacking.
References
Billings, et al. Crisis Communication in Sports Organizations. (2015)
Lumpkin, Et al. The Process of Making Morally Reasoned
Decision in Sports. (2012)
Hobson, Will. Olympic Executives
Cash in on “Movement” that Keeps Athletes Poor (2016)
Morgan, William. The Moral Case Against Contemporary American
Sports. (2012)
Wertheim et al. Why Our Moral Compass is More Flexible Than
an Olympic Gymnast. (2016)
