Journalism ethics and standards
Journalistic ethics and standards comprise principles of
There are around 400 codes covering journalistic work around the world. While various codes may differ in the detail of their content and come from different cultural traditions, most share common elements including the principles of
Like many broader ethical systems, the ethics of journalism include the principle of "limitation of harm". This may involve enhanced respect for vulnerable groups and the withholding of certain details from reports, such as the names of minor children, crime victims' names, or information not materially related to the news report where the release of such information might, for example, harm someone's reputation or put them at undue risk.[5][6] There has also been discussion and debate within the journalism community regarding appropriate reporting of suicide and mental health, particularly with regard to verbiage.[7]
Some journalistic codes of ethics, notably some European codes,
Evolution and purpose of codes of journalism
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Despite modern journalism going back as far as 400 years ago, journalism became more of a necessity in some views in the 1900s.[14] Newspapers function with the ideal of presenting "unbiased' information for the masses. The continual evolution of journalism, media and society as a whole, means that journalism will continue to face challenges in the pursuit of that ideal, and the unbiased presentation of information must be a constant topic in editorial meetings and in frequent discussions between editors and reporters.[14] The dissemination of information in today's journalism evolution means that newsrooms must be on point, not only for their own viability, but for the people who depend upon the information provided. Journalism, at its core, is a service occupation, meant to empower the populace with truth. The occupation carries with it an incredible onus, and one that no publisher, editor or journalist should ever take lightly.
Every country presents its own unique aspects and sometimes challenges as far the codes correlated with Journalism codes today. "Truth", "accuracy", and "objectivity" are cornerstones of journalism ethics.[15] Journalists are encouraged to maintain a degree of detachment from the religions, groups, or countries they are associated with, in order to minimize potential biases in their reporting. This separation is intended to mitigate the influence of personal biases on their journalistic writing.
Certain countries prefer to only have certain information put out and in certain contexts. In Islamic countries there is growing suspicion that journalism is fixed to only be positive for Islam, prompting Islam itself as the one and only truth its people should believe in.[16]
Codes of practice
While journalists in the United States and European countries have led the formulation and adoption of these standards, such codes can be found in news reporting organizations in most countries with freedom of the press. The written codes and practical standards vary somewhat from country to country and organization to organization, but there is substantial overlap between mainstream publications and societies. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) launched a global Ethical Journalism Initiative in 2008 aimed at strengthening awareness of these issues within professional bodies. In 2013 the Ethical Journalism Network was founded by former IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. This coalition of international and regional media associations and journalism support groups campaigns for ethics, good governance and self-regulation across all platforms of media.
One of the leading voices in the U.S. on the subject of journalistic standards and ethics is the Society of Professional Journalists. The Preamble to its Code of Ethics states:
[P]ublic enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility.
The Radio Television Digital News Association, an organization exclusively centered on electronic journalism, has a code of ethics centering on public trust, truthfulness, fairness, integrity, independence, and accountability.[17]
Common elements
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The primary themes common to most codes of journalistic standards and ethics are the following.
Accuracy and standards for factual reporting
- Reporters are expected to be as accurate as possible given the time allotted to story preparation and the space available and to seek reliable sources. Properly using their sources and using accurate quoting and use of words from interview or conversation.[18]
- Events with a single eyewitness are reported with attribution. Events with two or more independent eyewitnesses may be reported as fact. Controversial facts are reported with attribution.
- Independent fact-checking by another employee of the publisher is desirable. In 2018 "The Acton Plan" was created to help check information more effectively to hopefully get rid of false information.[19]
- Corrections are published when errors are discovered. These corrections are called corrigendum in newspapers, they feature after on the next issue published.
- Defendants at trial are treated only as having "allegedly" committed crimes, until conviction, when their crimes are generally reported as fact (unless, that is, there is serious controversy about wrongful conviction). In most publications, when defendants are convicted or pleaded guilty they will replace "allegedly" with "convicted of", "pleaded guilty to", or "found guilty of" in their reporting to avoid the small chance of a defamationissue in the event of a wrongful conviction.
- Opinion surveys and statistical information deserve special treatment to communicate in precise terms any conclusions, to contextualize the results, and to specify accuracy, including estimated error and methodological criticism or flaws. Through this information can be properly analyzed and used without heavy bias.
- Journalism today is built off true, accurate and objective information.[20] To remove those aspects would be damaging to the very core of not just journalism but also the very way information is spread and given to viewers and others all around the world. The audience will see the lack of ethics and standards, making others question what is good, reliable information, or not.
- Quality journalism that scrutinizes and criticizes social, political and economic authority is in a constant state of vulnerability to manipulation and censorship, particularly from those with money and power.[21]
Slander and libel considerations
- Reporting the truth is almost never libel,[22] which makes accuracy very important.
- Private persons have privacy rights that must be balanced against the public interest in reporting information about them. Public figures have fewer privacy rights in U.S. law, where reporters are immune from a civil case if they have reported without malice. In Canada, there is no such immunity; reports on public figures must be backed by facts.
- Publishers vigorously defend libel lawsuits filed against them. Truth is always a defense in libel. Courts in the U.S. generally do not rule in favor of the party claiming libel unless they can show that the journalist "published untrue information that hurt the reputation of an identifiable person," and that the journalist was "either negligent or reckless in failing to check the information."[23]
Harm limitation principle
During the normal course of an assignment a reporter might go about gathering facts and details, conducting
- Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
- Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
- Recognise that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
- Recognise that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone's privacy.
- Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
- Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects or victims of sex crimes.
- Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges.
- Balance a criminal suspect's fair trial rights with the public's right to be informed.
Self-regulation
In addition to codes of ethics, many news organizations maintain an in-house
An alternative is a news council, an industry-wide self-regulation body, such as the Press Complaints Commission, set up by UK newspapers and magazines. Such a body is capable of applying fairly consistent standards and of dealing with a higher volume of complaints but may not escape criticisms of being toothless.
Ethics and standards in practice
One of the most controversial issues in modern reporting is
There are also some wider concerns, as the media continues to change, that the brevity of news reports and use of
Attempts to identify misinformation
The Action Plan, proposed, the EU authorities, is meant to propose a guide for identifying misinformation. The project seeks to target misinformation and produce unbiased and professional informational postings.[19][25]
Genres, ethics, and standards
Civic journalism adopts a modified approach to objectivity; instead of being uninvolved spectators, the press is active in facilitating and encouraging public debate and examining claims and issues critically. This does not necessarily imply advocacy of a specific political party or position.
Cosmopolitan Journalism- The cosmopolitanism imperative that our primary ethical allegiance is to a borderless, moral community of humankind is often misunderstood. Therefore, it is important to say what it implies and what it does not. The claim of humanity is not the cognition of a cold abstract principle. It is the 14 Global Journalism Ethics ability to perceive and value our common humanity in the situations of life. It is respect for mankind's rational and moral capacities wherever and however, they are manifest. It is in our concrete dealings with others that we recognize humanity's common aspirations, vulnerabilities, and capacities, as well as its potential for suffering. In a fragmented world, cosmopolitanism focuses on what is fundamental—a common aspiration to life, liberty, justice, and goodness.[26]
Investigative journalism often takes an implicit point of view on a particular public interest, by asking pointed questions and intensely probing certain questions. With outlets that otherwise strive for neutrality on political issues, the implied position is often uncontroversial—for example, that political corruption or abuse of children is wrong and perpetrators should be exposed and punished, that government money should be spent efficiently, or that the health of the public or workers or veterans should be protected. Advocacy journalists often use investigative journalism in support of a particular political position, or to expose facts that are only concerning to those with certain political opinions. Regardless of whether or not it is undertaken for a specific political faction, this genre usually puts a strong emphasis on factual accuracy, because the point of an in-depth investigation of an issue is to expose facts that spur change. Not all investigations seek to expose facts about a particular problem; some data-driven reporting does deep analysis and presents interesting results for the general edification of the audience which might be interpreted in different ways or which may contain a wealth of facts concerned with many different potential problems. A factually-constrained investigation with an implied public interest point of view may also find that the system under investigation is working well.
New Journalism and Gonzo journalism also reject some of the fundamental ethical traditions and will set aside the technical standards of journalistic prose in order to express themselves and reach a particular audience or market segment. These favor a subjective perspective and emphasize immersive experiences over objective facts.
Some publications deliberately engage in
Relationship with freedom of the press
In countries without
Freedom of the press is expressly protected by
In the United States, freedom of the press is protected under the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.[28] Under the First Amendment, the government is not allowed to censor the press. Unlike modern bills of rights like the Canadian Charter or the South African Bill of Rights, the rights enumerated in the US Constitution are written so as to be absolute.
Variations, violations, and controversies
There are a number of finer points of journalistic procedure that foster disagreements in principle and variation in practice among "mainstream" journalists in the free press. Laws concerning libel and slander vary from country to country, and local journalistic standards may be tailored to fit. For example, the United Kingdom has a broader definition of libel than does the United States.[citation needed]
Accuracy is important as a core value and to maintain credibility, but especially in broadcast media, audience share often gravitates toward outlets that are reporting new information first. Different organizations may balance speed and accuracy in different ways. The New York Times, for instance, tends to print longer, more detailed, less speculative, and more thoroughly verified pieces a day or two later than many other newspapers.[citation needed] 24-hour television news networks tend to place much more emphasis on getting the "scoop". Here, viewers may switch channels at a moment's notice; with fierce competition for ratings and a large amount of airtime to fill, fresh material is very valuable. Because of the fast turn-around, reporters for these networks may be under considerable time pressure, which reduces their ability to verify information.
Laws with regard to personal
Objectivity as a journalistic standard varies to some degree depending on the industry and country. For example, the government-funded
Some digital media platforms can use criteria to choose stories which are different from traditional news values. For example, while the Google News portal essentially chooses stories based on news value (though indirectly, through the choices of large numbers of independent outlets), users can set Google Alerts on specific terms which define personal subjective interests. Search engines, news aggregators, and social network feeds sometimes change the presentation of content depending on the consumer's expressed or inferred preferences or leanings. This has both been cheered as bypassing traditional "gatekeepers" and whatever biases they may have in favor of audience-centric selection criteria, but criticized as creating a dangerous filter bubble which intentionally or unintentionally hides dissenting opinions and other content which might be important for the audience to see in order to avoid exposure bias and groupthink.[30]
Taste, decency, and acceptability
Audiences have different reactions to depictions of violence, nudity, coarse language, or to people in any other situation that is unacceptable to or stigmatized by the local culture or laws (such as the consumption of
When certain distasteful or shocking material is considered important to the story, there are a variety of common methods for mitigating negative audience reaction. Advance warning of explicit or disturbing material may allow listeners or readers to avoid content they would rather not be exposed to. Offensive words may be partially obscured or bleeped. Potentially offensive images may be blurred or narrowly cropped. Descriptions may be substituted for pictures; graphic detail might be omitted. Disturbing content might be moved from a cover to an inside page, or from daytime to late evening when children are less likely to be watching.
There is often considerable controversy over these techniques, especially concern that obscuring or not reporting certain facts or details is self-censorship that compromises objectivity and fidelity to the truth, and which does not serve the public interest.
For example, images and graphic descriptions of war are often violent, bloody, shocking and profoundly tragic. This makes certain content disturbing to some audience members, but it is precisely these aspects of war that some consider to be the most important to convey. Some argue that "sanitizing" the depiction of war influences public opinion about the merits of continuing to fight, and about the policies or circumstances that precipitated the conflict. The amount of explicit violence and mutilation depicted in war coverage varies considerably from time to time, from organization to organization, and from country to country.
Reporters have also been accused of indecency in the process of collecting news, namely that they are overly intrusive in the name of journalistic insensitivity. War correspondent Edward Behr recounts the story of a reporter during the Congo Crisis who walked into a crowd of Belgian evacuees and shouted, "Anyone here been raped and speaks English?"[31]
Campaigning in the media
Many print publications take advantage of their wide readership and print persuasive pieces in the form of unsigned
Other publications and many broadcast media only publish opinion pieces that are attributed to a particular individual (who may be an in-house analyst) or to an outside entity. One particularly controversial question is whether media organizations should endorse political candidates for office. Political endorsements create more opportunities to construe favoritism in reporting, and can create a perceived conflict of interest.
Investigative methods
Anonymous sources are double-edged—they often provide especially newsworthy information, such as classified or confidential information about current events, information about a previously unreported scandal, or the perspective of a particular group that may fear retribution for expressing certain opinions in the press. The downside is that the condition of
The Washington press has been criticized in recent years for excessive use of anonymous sources, in particular to report information that is later revealed to be unreliable. The use of anonymous sources increased markedly in the period before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[32]
Examples of ethical dilemmas
One of the primary functions of journalism ethics is to aid journalists in dealing with many ethical dilemmas they may encounter. From highly sensitive issues of national security to everyday questions such as accepting a dinner from a source, putting a bumper sticker on one's car, publishing a personal opinion blog, a journalist must make decisions taking into account things such as the public's right to know, potential threats, reprisals and intimidations of all kinds, personal integrity, conflicts between editors, reporters and publishers or management, and many other such conundra. The following are illustrations of some of those.
- The Pentagon Papers dealt with extremely difficult ethical dilemmas faced by journalists. Despite government intervention, The Washington Post, joined by The New York Times, felt the public interest was more compelling and both published reports. The cases went to the Supreme Court where they were merged and are known as New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713.[33]
- The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists, a joint venture, public service project of Chicago Headline Club Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and Loyola University Chicago's Center for Ethics and Social Justice, provides some examples of typical ethical dilemmas reported to their ethical dilemma hotline and are typical of the kinds of questions faced by many professional journalists, including the following:[34]
- Is it ethical to make an appointment to interview an arsonist sought by police, without informing police in advance of the interview?
- Is lack of proper attribution plagiarism?
- Should a reporter write a story about a local priest who confessed to a sex crime if it will cost the newspaper readers and advertisers who are sympathetic to the priest?
- Is it ethical for a reporter to write a news piece on the same topic after writing an opinion piece in the same paper?
- Under what circumstances do you identify a person who was arrested as a relative of a public figure, such as a local sports star?
- Freelance journalists and photographers accept cash to write about, or take photos of, events with the promise of attempting to get their work on the AP or other news outlets, from which they also will be paid. Is that ethical?
- Can a journalist reveal a source of information after guaranteeing confidentiality if the source proves to be unreliable?
Criticisms
Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman of the National Institute of Development Administration, in Thailand, argued that journalistic professionalism is a combination of two factors, secondary socialization of journalists in the workplace and the fetishization of journalistic norms and standards.[35] In this way, undesirable traits in new journalists can be weeded out, and remaining journalists are free to cynically criticize journalistic professional norms as long as they keep working and following them. This criticism is adapted from interviews of twenty political journalists from BBC News, Sky News, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post and MSNBC/NBC News, and from philosopher Slavoj Žižek's concept of ideology.[36]
See also
- Brown envelope journalism
- Chinese wall § Journalism
- Citizen journalism
- Code of ethics in media
- Ethical Journalism Initiative
- History of American newspapers
- History of journalism
- International Federation of Journalists
- Mediatization, on the democratic role of journalism
- Munich Charter
- New York Press Club
- Objectivity (journalism)
- Order of the Occult Hand
- Organisation of News Ombudsmen
- Parachute journalism
- Reporters Without Borders
References
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- ^ "APME – Statement of Ethical Principles". apme.com. Archived from the original on June 22, 2008.
- ^ a b "SPJ Code of Ethics". Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). September 6, 2014. Archived from the original on March 20, 2018. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
- ^ Internews Europe: Media Awards – Good Journalism Archived 2009-12-15 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on June 9, 2009
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- ^ "What Does the First Amendment Mean to The Press?". ThoughtCo. Archived from the original on April 26, 2017. Retrieved May 18, 2017.
- ^ "The political affiliations of the UK's national newspapers have shifted, but there is again a heavy Tory predominance". Democratic Audit. December 18, 2013. Archived from the original on September 23, 2019. Retrieved September 23, 2019.
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