Every journalist has power. They have power to do good, yet they also have the power to harm others. It all comes down to how they decide to use those powers. In chapter nine Bugeja discusses molding your values to use those powers to make the right choices instead of making choices that will have negative consequences. However, sometimes people may be ignorant to how their action affect others. Sometimes we may do something to better ourselves and maybe even help others, but even the best laid plans can go awry and result in negative consequences. I think it is best to analyze each move you make and perhaps list the outcomes that it could have. Sometimes it is difficult to say exactly how something will turn out, but by assessing your actions along the journey you can filter out more negative things. For example this summer I had to write a story about an oil spill that occurred at a beach near my home. Things like this are upsetting to a coastal community and as a resident I feel for the community every time something harzardous to the environment occurs. And the media certainly had the power to go in and give people a skewed perception of the event by reporting about all of the horrible consequences of the spill. However, there are two and sometimes multiple sides to a story. It turns out that the tanker that spilled was being run ragged and although the crew of the ship had pleaded numerous times for maintenance, their requests had not been fulfilled. This however was their livelihood and a major complaint could cost them a job. If a journalist felt compelled they could go in and do some damage to the shipping company by only interviewing people who think the spill is the worst thing ever. Through research I came to find that although an oil spill is never a wonderful thing, in reality the spill was really not as bad as people made it out to be and could easily be cleaned. The coast guard said that had people that were able to come in and clean it up that same week. This is why it is always important to be fair to the parties involved in a story to keep from burning them and also to keep them from burning you if you write a skewed story. Bugeja goes over some useful guidelines for employees to explore and embrace. Guidelines that should help a journalist or a person in another profession to use their power for good. A couple of the guidelines for using power that I found to be especially important are: acknowledging your influence in the lives of others, know right from wrong, exercise fairness, use discretion and use restraint. It would have been easy for me to only report the side of the outraged beach community and how this could slap a negative label on this shipping company. In order to avoid overexercising power all possible sides and outcomes should be considering before delving into any story or job. A journalist’s story has the power to affect people’s views and sometimes even their lives.
