Term Paper on "Ethical Dilemma Involves a Major Advertiser"

Term Paper 4 pages (1358 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Ethical dilemma involves a major advertiser in a newspaper, the Weekly Herald. The newspaper was directly affected, while the television news medium was also involved. The company involved sells used cars, and has bought a large amount of advertising space under contract for one year. Furthermore the stated policy of the company is to remain non-partial in its hiring and termination of employees.

The ethical dilemma arose when an investigative reporter discovered a threat of legislation against the motor company for unfairly terminating an employee. The employee's claim is that he was mistreated and subsequently terminated because of his race and religion. The employee is Arabic, and his religion is Islam. He has been working for the company for ten years, and has thus started employment before the 9/11 attacks. His claim is that he began to be mistreated just after the attacks.

Upon investigation, the reporter was told that the employee was not fired for these reasons. He had been caught stealing money from the company's cash box, of which he had been in charge since the beginning of his employment with the company. The employers offered to provide proof of their own investigations regarding the matter.

The problem however arose as a result of the company's refusal to allow newspaper reporting regarding the matter. If the reporter were then to write about the matter regardless of this, it constitutes a conflict of interest with an advertiser. The company manager also threatened to withdraw all current and future advertising and claim refunds should the Weekly Herald not comply with its wishes.

The problem with this is however that public interest would not be served by the newspaper's silence. The former employee has threatened to go to the press. As the circumstances of his termination relate directly to a very current issue, there is no doubt that the story would reach television and other news media. The problem for the Weekly Herald is that its readership would lose the trust that has been cultivated over half a century of reporting.

The ethical dilemma then relates to the newspaper's obligation to its readership and its obligation to a regular and major advertiser. It has always been the policy of the Weekly Herald to report the news regardless of possible bad publicity. Also, suspicions have been aroused by the motor company's willingness to prove internal investigation and yet refusing permission to publish the story.

The reporter in question brought the matter to the attention of the editor, who contacted the human resources manager to discuss the matter. It was decided that it was in the paper's best interest to pursue the story. The policy of the Weekly Herald is clearly that reporting should be honest, current and impartial. If any place of business is guilty of misconduct with regard to its employees, readers have the right to know about it. Furthermore, in the intensely competitive world of reporting, it would serve the paper well to bring fully investigated, truthful and timely material to the reader. Waiting for the angry employee to go to the press with the story would be unfair both to the paper and to its readership. Firstly, the Weekly Herald would prove untrustworthy in terms of newsworthy items and secondly, it is likely that the objectivity of the story would be compromised.

It was therefore decided that further investigation is necessary. The reporter was then commissioned to approach the motor company for its proof of internal investigation. Furthermore the manager of the company was to be approached for comments and for permission to publish the story. The employee would also be approached for his side of the story in order to provide as objective a view of the situation as possible. Because the matter is of extreme sensitivity in our current society, it is essential that all interviews and requests be handled with the utmost sensitivity, while not compromising the truth. If the company threatens the paper in any way in terms of liability or withdrawal of funds, these threats will be noted for future use. This could… READ MORE

How to Reference "Ethical Dilemma Involves a Major Advertiser" Term Paper in a Bibliography

Related Term Papers:

Ethical Problem Analysis Research Proposal

Ethical Problem: False Advertising

False advertising is a serious ethical problem as it gives unfair advantage to competitors on a product or service that may not be better than rival's… read more

Research Proposal 7 pages (2271 words) Sources: 6 Style: APA Topic: Advertising / Marketing / Sales

---

Ethics in Marketing Research Paper

Ethics in Marketing

There are a number of ethical issues in marketing today. These range from the messages that advertisers send -- especially to children -- to the ethics of… read more

Research Paper 5 pages (1329 words) Sources: 4 Topic: Advertising / Marketing / Sales

---

Superheadism Policy of the Labour Party Term Paper

Education

Throughout the world there is an emphasis placed on education; the United Kingdom is no exception. The United Kingdom has long been revered for the educational structure that exist… read more

Term Paper 20 pages (5288 words) Sources: 1+ Topic: Education / Teaching / Learning

---

Xm Radio vs. FTC Case Study

XM Radio

XM's role as a media provider is as a content distributor. The company acquires content, and uses a relatively unique mechanism to distribute that content to consumers.

The… read more

Case Study 4 pages (1588 words) Sources: 0 Topic: Business / Corporations / E-commerce

---

Change Management for Enterprise 2.0 Implementations Dissertation

Enterprise 2.0 technologies employ social media tools to help individuals within organizations identify and connect with each other in ways that promote information sharing and collaboration (Hagel & Brown 2012).… read more

Dissertation 40 pages (14654 words) Sources: 80 Style: Harvard Topic: Computers / IT / Internet

---

View 100+ more related papers  >>