WMU journalism professor wins awards for latest book

By David Alexander
Western Herald

Borden

Western Michigan University’s Professor Sandra Borden’s office bookshelf is getting crowded with plaques for her new award-winning book that marries ethical philosophy and pragmatic application.

Borden’s book, “Journalism as Practice,” was published in December 2007, and awarded the 2008 top book award in applied ethics by the National Communication Association’s Communication Ethics Division.

The book, which Borden wrote during her hiatus a few years ago, also won the annual 2008 Clifford G. Christians Ethics Research Award given by the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research. “Journalism as Practice” was also one of three finalists for the Tankard Book Award for top book in the field of mass communication.

The NCAC is an institution that focuses on taking philosophical tenements and uses them to better the field of communication ethics and moral theory. Borden said in addition to submitting her work
for the award’s consideration, several of her colleagues also recommended her for the award. None of her colleagues could be reached at the time of this article went to print.

One of Borden’s main influences for the book is philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, whose virtue theory Borden exploits to make comparisons between ethical distinctions in journalism as a community service and as a business. The book is not a text book, and is mainly for “academic” types, she said, but would be appropriate for upper-level graduate students.

“One of the things [MacIntyre] proposed was this idea of a practice, and often journalists talk about practice, but more in the sense of how we do things or performance or something like that, but [MacIntyre] was doing it in kind of a specialized way,” Borden said.

“And kind of harkening back to an Aristotelian concept of craft, but, craft not simply understood as a set of skills, but a kind of activity that is sort of social by nature and has a standard of excellence attached to it. And, therefore has a moral kind of quality about it. So to be a good journalist means something specific within the tradition of journalism,” she added.

Helping journalists be better able to distinguish themselves morally from the business aspect of journalism is one of Borden’s goals. It is her hope that the sort of thinking explored in her book will help journalists better relate to their colleagues and possibly emphasize to the greater public why quality journalism is in everyone’s best interest.

Borden has taught Media Ethics at WMU for 12 years. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Bloomington in Indiana after completing her Master of Arts degree at Ohio State University.

For five years after completing her master’s, Borden worked at small newspapers in Tennessee and Missouri where she was an education reporter, opinion column writer and served as an editorial page editor.

No review of the book was available online but according to bookrags.com, “’Journalism as Practice’ uses examples from the modern media to confront current ethical standards in journalism, and how the international demand for higher standards transcends personal opinions …”

A philosophy press published the book, something Borden said is an honor to her because getting published by a philosophy press is difficult for people who are not philosophers themselves.

Moving the area of media ethics forward was Borden’s main reason for writing the book, but she also wanted to address the ethical problems posed by making news into a commodity, she said. This issue is not something that can be solved by individual journalists standing their ground, she added.

Borden believes that the public needs to be more involved in recognizing the degree of effort that goes into good journalism and that a new business model, perhaps something along the same lines as a non-profit organization, for newspapers needs to be adopted.

“The big question really is, who’s going to pay for good journalism, and how much? …We’ve gotten used to not really paying for the cost of journalism because traditionally advertising has supported it,” she said.

“But now that advertising has migrated to the Web, and as it turns out, Web advertising does not in fact support operations like ‘The New York Times.’ It’s just not working, it’s not going to work,” she added.

In order for the news industry to survive, both financially and ethically, it is important, Borden believes, for it to place more focus on journalists working together.

“Journalists tend to be very individualistic … so sometimes it can be hard for them to get together on anything,” Borden said. “My sense was, given the kinds of business challenges in place, that one journalist going up at a time wasn’t going to make much of a difference. They were really going to have to think about themselves as more of a collective entity.”

The defining characteristic of journalism as a practice is reporting, said Borden. She added that a social movement is needed in order to get the public to buy into the concept of investing in good reporting. She said that one of the major questions that need to be addressed is, what are the core moral commitments that make a journalist a journalist?

Borden said she receives royalties for the book, but even though the book is almost sold out, she has only made around $200. She said she received no stipend either for the publication of the book or the award and that she wrote the book simply to get her work out there.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=5342

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Mar 31 2009. Filed under Campus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com