UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS ETHICS
Task 1: Business Ethics: A Study of CNN
P1: Explain the Ethical Issues a Business needs to consider in its
operational activities
Business Ethics
Business ethics is the study of business practices and policies. They are
issues that a business must take into account when carrying out their daily
business activities. There are basic business ethics which are implemented
into laws such as environmental laws and minimum wage act.
Operational Activities
Operating activities are a company's day-to-day operations including
producing and selling a product generating income, and general operational
and maintenance tasks.
Ethical Activities
Companies hire a lot of people, this takes a lot of time and resources. Big
businesses can afford to waste these resources to hire an employee, but
they fail to check if they are doing it ethically. They may be following the
policies and their practices, but they still may not be ethical. Some
companies think of ethical activities as just being more sustainable, but it is
a lot more than that. For a company to be ethical they need to relate to the
moral principles. The word ethical activity is really to influence the market,
,showing support for fundamental moral principles, including honesty,
fairness, equality, liberty, equity, and civil rights.
Ethical Issues
There are always two sides to a coin, a business cannot always do
everything right. Businesses’ will want to please their stakeholders, but with
conflicting views most of the time this is hard to do, sometimes impossible.
A business, such as CNN, could be faced with choosing to create panic in the
general public so that they could gain views or be truthful about a topic and
have no one listen to them which would be bad for the business.
Values
Business values, also known as corporate values, are the basic values which
the business is based upon. The business values guide the business and help
them manage their relations with their customers and their decision making.
Professional Ethics
Every business will have a moral code that they follow. Every employee will
also follow some moral and ethical rules. Professional ethics is then known
as the principles which govern the behavior of an individual or group in a
professional environment. Like values, professional ethics guide how a
person should act towards other persons and institutions in such an
environment, bringing his or her professional ethics into context.
Individual Ethical Behaviour
,Every business would want its employees to follow their rules on how to
operate most ethically. Acting in a way that is compatible with what people
and society usually believe are good values is ethical behavior. Ethical
conduct appears to be good for business and shows respect for core moral
principles like integrity, justice, equity, morality, diversity, and individual
rights.
The Business Under Study
CNN was created by Maverick Broadcasting executive Ted Turner, as part of
their Turner Broadcasting System. CNN signed on the air June 1, 1980, with
a news telecast anchored by the husband-and-wife team of Dave Walker and
Lois Hart. Initially derided by its more affluent competitors as “the Chicken
Noodle Network” because of its comparatively meager financial resources,
CNN endured an arduous struggle to earn respect in the broadcast world.
Maturing and expanding along with the cable industry itself, CNN maintained
a loyal following by offering what the major networks did not: full,
continuous coverage of all news events, both large and small.
Their mission is to deliver the world's best creative solutions by
sourcing the stories that matter. CNN’s objective is to provide the best
possible news coverage to the public. We want to provide our
audience with a broad variety of news, not just news about what is
happening in Washington or the Middle East. We provide full
coverage about political issues but we also provide our audience
with news about sports, entertainment, technology, healthy living,
business, and other trending topics. CNN strives to provide the most
neutral and unbiased stories to our audience so that they can obtain the
most accurate information. We consider a range of varying perspectives and
treat controversial subjects, as well as all other subjects, with impartiality.
, CNN’s mission is basically to deliver interesting and new stories, this would
mainly appeal to their external stakeholders which are their viewer’s
customers
Viewers
From the values and mission statement of CNN, it is their ethical duty to
provide their viewers with different stories that their viewers would find
informative and interesting. Their value would involve CNN trying to
maintain their standards of providing their viewers with true stories and
facts.
Government
From the values and mission statement of CNN, it is the ethical duty of CNN
to help the government be more transparent about what they do and what
their work is like. Problems can arise when CNN posts fake news which can
cause panic within a country.
Employees
From the values and mission statement of CNN, it is the duty of CNN to hire
the best and most respected journalists who are not biased or
discriminatory. Ethical issues could arise if there are false stories posted.
Owner
From the values and mission statement of CNN, it is the duty of the owner to
make sure that CNN follows all ethical and moral rules. It is the duty of the
owner to also ensure that the news provided by CNN doesn’t have any
discrimination or biasness.
Suppliers. CNN is aware of their ethical responsibility to their suppliers as
their rights have to be protected and when required, their security should be
guaranteed in order for these sources of news be confident that nothing will