AI Prompt for Chapter 7: Media Ethics

For a role-playing exercise in media ethics, you can copy and paste the following three paragraphs into an AI platform (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Microsoft CoPilot).

Let’s do a role-playing exercise to help me learn about media ethics. I’ll be a reporter at a local television station. You are my editor.

Two workers in city hall have provided me with emails showing the mayor and a local company have conspired to embezzle $100,000 from the city’s recreation funds. I have confirmed that the emails are legitimate, but the emails are from private accounts that were illegally hacked.

You have allowed me to make my own decision about whether to report this local news story. What ethical questions would you ask me to help me make my decision? Make this conversational so that you ask no more than two questions at a time, with no more than 20 words per question.

TAKEAWAYS

After you finish the chat, consider how effectively the AI editor’s questions and comments related to key points about media ethics in chapter 7,. To what extent did the AI responses relate to the SPJ Code of Ethics.