Rather than speak to an imaginative future in a media profession I will discuss the current ‘media’ profession in which I find myself as a parish priest. As a priest in a community of faith I am the gatekeeper of information. More than any other person in the parish it is my decision as to what information is passed on to the congregation and what information is withheld from them.
For example, during an average week I receive several pleas for support from various organizations claiming that they are doing good works in the community, state, country, and/or world. Do I pass that information along to everyone? I can easily do so through a parish wide list service that I have set up. I could advertise that information in the parish newsletter, put it in the Sunday bulletin, or verbally endorse it during the announcements.
So let’s say I receive an appeal to endorse and publicize a program that helps people who have fallen through the safety net. This organization provides housing, counseling, and job services for single men who have dual diagnoses: addiction and mental health issues. Their clientele encounter a revolving door in the social services circle with the alcohol & drug facilities claiming they’re mental health patients and mental health claiming that they require the services of A&D programs. This is the only agency that does help them. Their resources are so meager that any help would produce significant results for their clients.
Is it ethical to not mention this program? No doubt in each ethical theory mentioned by Patterson and Wilkins (Bok, Aristotle, Kant, Utilitarianism, Pluralism, and Communitarianism) the ethical outcome would be to support this program as it reduces the harm to society in general by meeting the needs of this class of citizen by getting them off the streets, healthier, and perhaps, a functioning participant in society again. Yet there is another issue here that has nothing to do with the needs of these men: charity fatigue. This is the crux of the dilemma.
The reality is that nearly every program that seeks endorsement and advertisement is worthy in one aspect or another. However, if I, as the gatekeeper, opened the gates and deluged the congregation during the week and every weekend and in every publication medium employed by the parish, members would soon become less and less receptive to any appeal and reluctant to support any program regardless of how much good it generated. More than likely they would begin ignoring the medium through which these appeals were published.
Thus, one ethical dilemma I face on a close to daily basis is whether or not to advertise this or that appeal to the whole congregation. Of course being a media or information gatekeeper applies to many other ethically fraught areas as well besides merely publishing the needs and wants of particular relief organizations. One thing I have learned as a priest - information, solicited or not, flows my way. What I do with that information, whether it is about a social program or an individual or group, nearly always presents an ethical dilemma.
The best examples I can come up with, from history, was the advent of the Federal Programs AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), Food Stamps, and Medicaid which I learned about during my training in social work. For the purpose of this blog I will consider AFDC (which began as Aid to Dependent Children as a part of the Social Security Act of 1935). This program was devised by the Federal government to financially assist children in families that fell below the poverty line.
This program was available from 1935 until it was ended by President Clinton’s welfare reform in 1996. However, during most of it’s run it was ‘hidden’ from view in some, if not many, states. Although Federally mandated it was administered and run by states. In their effort to contain costs they did very little to advertise the availability of these benefits. As a result many eligible families who could have benefited greatly from this program were denied participation through ignorance which was no fault of their own. Was it ethical behavior on the part of the state governments to obfuscate this needed program?
I have to disagree with Patterson and Wilkins take on religion as stated on page 3, “It is important here to distinguish between ethics, a rational process founded upon certain agreed-on principles, and morals, which are in the realm of religion.” They go on to claim that the Ten Commandments are a moral system with which I agree but to claim that the midrash of the Talmud, and by extension the writers of the New Testament, upon the Torah is but moral framework is a bit of a stretch. The exegesis of Torah by the talmudic scholars and exegetes of the New Testament are sometimes for the purpose of providing an ethical framework through which one may faithfully observe and live the morality expounded by scripture.
In my opinion religion provides a basis for morality and ethics. Given that, I have a rich set of tools to draw upon in regards to making ethical decisions. These tools are provided by the stories of those who practiced their faith with keen insight into the ethical requirements that they understood was based upon the foundation of the morality of scripture and tradition.
St. Augustine redefined the ethical framework regarding war and the Christian, for better or worse, when Rome was “sacked” (wasn’t really a sack so much as negotiated looting) by Alaric in 410 CE. He did this through his work, City of God, where he laid the groundwork for Just War. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s decision to commit murder (the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler) was an ethical decision based upon his understanding of the moral implications of his religious experience. Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple’s refusal to support the war effort during World War II is another example.
Thus, in my understanding, while religion is certainly a generator of morals it is also, of necessity, a generator of ethical frameworks through which individuals and communities can work towards or rise up to and meet the demands of those morals through ethical intercourse.
The readings I have read to date, the first chapter of Media Ethics and the article The Shadow Scholar reconfirms for me the postmodern nature of ethics in this current era: postmodern in the sense that there is no one center or master narrative (meta-narrative) but a series of overlapping narratives. I am learning that to make effective ethical decisions it would probably be best not to lock in on one particular system but to be familiar with as many ethical systems as possible along with the stories (narratives) they produce (the dilemmas and how they were resolved - right or wrong).
Here are some questions I’d like to see addressed:
- What are limits?
- What boundaries are appropriate to cross and what ones are inviolable?
- Is it ever right to release information that will cause harm, any harm?
- Can one ever ‘get back’ if one crosses an ethical boundary? If so, how?
- Is it ever ethical to betray a trust?
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