Of good and geese and ganders

Goodness, beauty and truth might be universally valued and valuable but they are neither constant over time nor uniform across the globe. Goodness and truth, like beauty, are in the eyes of beholders. Absolutes are hard to find. Plurality prevails. All of which makes the issue of values difficult for media practitioners, including journalists, and media educators, including academics. All generally eschew the “whatever it takes” answer to questions of scruple, whatever they might actually do. They wish to know – and to do – what is legal, what is moral and what is ethical, albeit that those things elude definition, uniformity and universal standardisation.