DMA 5

 The Signal Group Chat

Ethical considerations

Image of article headline from The Atlantic

Let’s talk about national security. The Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic, Jeffery Goldberg, was added to a Signal, a commercial communication site, group chat with several United States government officials discussing highly classified information and war plans. I’m sure I don’t need to lay out every ethical concern in this situation or every question the American people have. If you are curious about the play-by-play, Goldberg himself wrote the story and published it to The Atlantic’s website. What I will talk about is the New York Times Opinions podcast talking about United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, another individual at the center of it all. Who, by the way, is being investigated by the top investigative office at the Pentagon to evaluate Hegseth and the allegations against him for using a NON-SECURE COMMERCIAL GROUP CHAT TO DISCUSS CLASSIFIED INFORMATION!!!! Despite this, Hegseth told CNN reporters that he “knows exactly what [he’s] doing.”

The podcast itself discusses the security concerns surrounding the group chat and the consequences that follow. It focuses on American safety and military strategy and how, overall, this was a massive screw up. 

Unfortunately, there’s not enough space in this to discuss every individual issue with this situation. However, Chapter 9 of our textbook lays out a few concepts to consider. For the sake of this discussion, we will analyze three. 

1: Transparency 

One of the primary concepts of this chapter is transparency. In Goldberg’s article, there’s a few things to focus on. “Digital writers should aim to adopt more of the practices and techniques of good podcasters and bloggers, who demonstrated how valuable committing to transparency can be” (pg. 271). One aspect of transparency in this article is the detail and caution he takes; he states several times something like “the user under the name blah blah blah,” because he knows he’s not 100% sure. He’s transparent about his thought process throughout the situation. However, Goldberg also censors a lot of information, such as the names of undercover agents and classified details, but he tells the reader why. 

2: Accountability

The textbook also focuses on accountability. This section of the chapter focuses more on holding creators accountable, such as the standard in which journalists, for example, should uphold in reporting. “In journalism, a backlash against objectivity and a general misunderstanding of even what objectivity is have put editors and publishers on the defensive. Mainstream journalism has struggled to embrace newer media forms in part because the pursuit of objectivity that has for so long marked the “guild” of journalism simply isn’t valued as much in these newer contexts,” (pg. 272).

3: Fake news 

It ultimately falls on readers to identify fake-news, or false information presented as honest news. “Credible sources identify themselves, and they have a track record by which they can be judged,” (pg 275). Goldberg can be considered as “credible” not only because it’s told first hand, but he’s the Editor-in-Chief of the news outlet, which has a track record for being credible. The podcast, although an opinion piece, is considered credible since it’s published by the NYT.