Developing a Research Question

Now that my class has finished Project 1, the QRG, we will be moving on to the next assignment! Before I dig into more research and work, I am going to consider my options for controversy in my field.

Lambert, Wolf (2013) "own work" via Wikipedia
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An ongoing debate that I came across when researching my controversy for Project 1 was about an ethical line that journalists are faced with when writing, particularly when writing about controversial or sensitive topics. Additionally, I noticed a lot of debate concerning the relationship between journalists' ethics and their credibility.

Possible Research Questions...

• Do journalists have a moral expectation from their readers? How would this influence whether or not they consider the author/article to be credible?

• Do journalists have a moral responsibility when they are writing about sensitive or controversial topics, and how does this relate to the credibility of the article or author?

• Should/do the moral obligations of journalists discourage or encourage them to write about certain topics?

• How to journalists balance ethics with credibility if they are writing about a sensitive or controversial topic?

• How has media ethics changed over the years, has it become more or less ethical?

Finding the answers to these questions interest me because they all relate directly to my last project, the QRG, which was about the effects of Rolling Stone's UVA-rape article that was retracted this past December. Being a journalist major, these questions also relate directly to me. I am interested in learning more about the expectations and realities of journalists, as well as from their audiences.

In journalism, ethics is considered to be one of the most vital components of a credible article. I am interested to see how finding the answers to these research questions will unfold and what I will be able to take from them as a writer, particularly as a journalist.