Ethical Dilemmas Of Working Podcasters

With great podcasting comes great responsibility. Uncle Ben would have said, and I'm talking about the one from Spiderman, not Ozark, but there are ethical considerations to make when deciding to exercise that power or not. Let's discuss.

[00:00:21] Hello and welcome to another podcast. Pontifications with me. Evo Terra. I'm recording this on April fool's day, 2020 but I am not feeling very April fool's easy for rather obvious reasons. So I'm doing exactly the opposite of that and addressing a serious topic. Ethics. Ethics in podcasting ethics for working podcasters.

[00:00:49] Now, look, I'm not a professor of ethics though. I did study under the great professor, GD  for four years seasons, but ethics are something we have to consider as working podcast just because we have a responsibility, as I said, in the lead to the people who listen to our shows. And as working podcasters, we have responsibilities of where our voice is heard beyond our podcast.

[00:01:19] And for some of us who are working inside of podcasting, we have a responsibility for the content. We help produce ethical considerations all along the way.

[00:01:38] I have faced these for a while now, not just in podcasting, but you know, my job outside of podcasting has been, had been in the marketing and advertising world, and I'll tell you, the agencies I worked for, we had to work for companies that I didn't agree with. But ethics is not really, in my opinion about well opinions.

[00:01:58] It's not about things you agree or disagree with. Although I suppose it could be. To me, the ethical considerations are more about when things are just flat out bad, incorrect, wrong, those sorts of things. So the last about a differing opinion, much more about when things are flat out, not good and just need to be addressed.

[00:02:25] Like say for example, you are choosing guests for your show. If in fact your guests. If you're, in fact, your show has guests and your guest comes on and says some really off the wall stuff that can be kind of fun and entertaining, but one of the things that that guest says are flat out wrong. What if you had them on to talk about a topic and they went on a different angle and went off on something that is offensive, that is just incorrect information?

[00:02:59] What do you do. If you're the podcast when that happens. I mean, the nice thing is you have the ability to chop it all out, but you may have an ethical consideration of should you do that or not. It was that person's accurate view, should you cut it out or not?

[00:03:16] What if you're being a guest on someone's show? If you're a chosen to appear on someone's show and you find out that the host of that show is a racist, crazy person, would you go on that show. Maybe it has a lot of listeners, maybe we can really help boost your audience, but again, known racist, crazy person.

[00:03:39] Would you do it if you are a podcast consultancy like I run, or maybe you're just a solo entrepreneur and you're working for a variety of podcasters, do you have to really consider, well, I think you do have to consider that the the. People you're working for? Are you helping get a message out there that is wrong?

[00:04:04] Are you helping get messages out there that are actually causing harm to people because they go and believe some weird, crazy things? What's your ethics around choosing clients you work with? Or what if it's more quiet than that? What if. Your job is to edit podcast, and I know I have a lot of listeners here who are editors of shows or engineers of shows.

[00:04:31] What if you're going along and you hear some crazy stuff that's being spewed that is simply not true and also harmful? You have the power right there to chop it out. Should you do that? That's an ethical consideration. You have to make. What if you're trying to market your new show, or you're hired by another show to do some marketing for that show, and you are considering marketing tactics that are well gray areas, like very, very dark gray areas.

[00:05:08] They'll get the results. Okay. But do the ends justify the means as our friend Machiavelli told us, Hmm.

[00:05:21] And then what if the content that you're just involved with, either from a consultant point of view or from a cohost point of view, or from an engineering point of view, so just not good. It's low quality. It's not that it's bad information, it's just that it's low end quality. Do you have an ethical responsibility to speak up.

[00:05:41] Maybe not even as a producer or a guest, but as a listener, do you have an ethical responsibility to reach out to the host and say, I like what you have to say. I just wish you said it better. Where's the ethics of that?

[00:06:03] What about choosing advertising? If you need to monetize your program in such a way. That it brings in revenue. Do you have to vet all the advertisers? I mean, if someone who, not just that you were opposed to their political views, but a company that has done really terrible things like, I hate to mention it now, I'm not going to mention it, but you can picture some of your hip companies that are operating legally, but in doing pretty bad things.

[00:06:33] If they came to you and said, here's a pile of money, would you advertise this other thing? That has nothing to do with the thing that you're diametrically opposed to because companies have their fingers in lots of different pies. Right? Now, here's a bunch of money to talk about this other thing. Would you and think about the slippery slope that provides because of how interconnected everything actually is.

[00:06:58] How, how deep do you go vetting advertisers service providers. That are helping you with the show for helping monetize your show or doing something else. Ethical dilemmas. Now, you might've noticed, I, I'm not giving you an answer to that because this is one of the things that podcasters need to think about.

[00:07:26] Ethics. Where do our own personal values come to play? Where do we draw the line? Forget what's legal. Forget freedom of speech. Because unless you are a government. Employee offering podcast services, freedom of speeches, and the big deal. Just think about the ethics. What's right and wrong for you. I don't know how to answer this question for you.

[00:07:46] I know I have to answer this question every day, and I think you do as well. I'd love to chat about it. I'd love you. I'd love for you to chat about it amongst your friends. Ask the people. Who are also working podcast or is that you coordinate with on a regular basis, ask what they're doing, what do they think about ethical dilemmas?

[00:08:04] Maybe bring up some of these ethical dilemmas you might be facing to them and get a second opinion. That's not a bad idea. Tell him you heard about this episode of podcast pontifications and that's why you're bringing the topic up because again, it'd be great if I could get a listener or two more who was also working podcast or spread the good news.

[00:08:22] I like people to be thinking about very important things. And if you want to tell me about your thoughts on ethical dilemmas, do you stand all the way out and say, I don't have any, or do you make a fine, finely detailed list that you go through and a checklist? I'm curious, what do you do? Send me an email, let you evo@podcastlaunched.pro and I shall be back tomorrow with yet another podcast.

[00:08:47] Pontifications cheers.

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