Ethical for Conglomerates, Which Own

¶ … ethical for conglomerates, which own companies that produce military equipment for our country, to also own media corporations that will cover our wars?" demonstrates my understanding of ethical perspectives and their application to communication behavior. I present in this paper two distinct components to the argument over press freedoms and the First Amendment. I also analyze issues of national security as well. There are many different perspectives to this issue and I was able to identify those different perspectives and analyze their merits on ethical grounds.

The ethical dilemma occurs because there is some degree of merit to each of the different ethical perspectives. This requires some determination of priorities in order to resolve the ethical issue. I feel that I was able to accomplish this in the course of my discussion. I determined in the course of my analysis that press freedoms, while ostensibly in the national interest, were so on a broad level. More immediate national interest issues would therefore take precedence over press freedom -- the ethical imperative derives from temporal immediacy. I draw the following conclusion: "In this regard, there should be a continuous recognition that some press freedom will be restricted in the interest of the public and national security."

I also bring classical ethical philosophy into the discussion as it specifically concerns the conflict of interest within conglomerates that own both the production of the means of war and the media outlets that cover the war. I determined that the Kantian perspective was a valuable means to resolve this apparent conflict of interest, that "only in extending good will can the military draw up sound rules for conduct either during times of peace or war" in reference to the relationship between the military and the media. Good will is a precursor to the central issue of this dilemma -- ethical communication.

In this course, we learned that it is important to utilize the prevailing ethical perspectives, in particular to find the one most appropriate to the situation. The consequentialist perspective sheds light on my conclusions -- that national interest is the ultimate objective of both press freedoms and military action but that the latter form of national interest is more immediate in nature and therefore should supersede the former. I feel that my ability to examine this ethical dilemma from a number of viable perspectives and to determine the best perspective and subsequently apply that perspective is evidence that I have mastered the concepts of this course.

The role of press freedom in communication is at the heart of this issue. The ethics of the communication, when the dilemma involves two mutually exclusive points of national interest, is difficult to evaluate. In providing a framework for this evaluation and for this discussion I feel that I have demonstrated competency in the subject matter of this course.