The self‐questioning in the Oregonian newsroom illustrates ethics awareness in contemporary journalism. “Twenty years ago, an ethical question might come up when someone walked into the editor’s office at the last minute,” said Sandra Rowe, then the editor of The Oregonian. “We’ve gone through a culture change. Now an ethical question comes up once or twice a week at our daily news meeting, where everyone can join the discussion. We are confident we can reach a sound decision if everyone has a say.”3
Incentives for Ethical Behavior
Most journalists see theirs as a noble profession serving the public interest. They want to behave ethically.
Why should journalists practice sound ethics? If you ask that question in a crowd of journalists, you will probably get as many answers as there are people in the room. But, while the answers may vary, their essence can be distilled into two broad categories. One, logically enough, is moral; the other could be called practical.
The moral incentive
Journalists should be ethical because they, like most other human beings, want to see themselves as decent and honest. It is natural to crave self‐esteem, not to mention the respect of others. There is a psychic reward in knowing that you have tried to do the right thing. As much as they like getting a good story, journalists don’t want to be known for having exploited someone in the process.
The practical incentive
In the long term, ethical journalism promotes the news organization’s credibility and thus its acceptance by the public. This translates into commercial success. What journalists have to sell is the news – and if the public does not believe their reporting, they have nothing to sell. Consumers of the news are more likely to believe journalists’ reporting if they see the journalists as ethical in the way they treat the public and the subjects of news coverage. Just as a wise consumer would choose a product with a respected brand name over a no‐name alternative when seeking quality, journalists hope that consumers will choose their news organization because it behaves responsibly – because it can be trusted.
Why Standards Are Needed
There are also practical arguments for ethical behavior that flow from journalism’s special role in American life.
The First Amendment guarantee of a free press means that, unlike other professionals, such as those in medicine and the law, journalists are not regulated by the state and are not subject to an enforceable ethics code. And that is a good thing, of course. The First Amendment insulates journalists from retribution from office holders who want to control the flow of information to the public and who often resent the way they are covered in the media. If a state board licensed journalists, it is a safe bet that some members of the board would abuse their power to rid themselves of journalists who offend them. The public would be the loser if journalists could be expelled from the profession by their adversaries in government.
But there is a downside to press freedom: Anybody, no matter how unqualified or unscrupulous, can become a journalist. It is a tolerable downside, given the immense benefit of independent news media. Nevertheless, bad journalists taint the reputation of everyone in the profession. Because they are not subject to legally enforceable standards, honest journalists have an individual obligation to adhere voluntarily to high standards of professional conduct. Ethical journalists do not use the Constitution’s protection to be socially destructive.
Yet another argument for sound ethics is the dual nature of a news organization. Journalism serves the public by providing reliable information that people need to make governing decisions about their community, state, and nation. This is a news organization’s quasi‐civic function. But the news organization has another responsibility, too – and that is to survive in the marketplace. Like any other business, the newspaper, broadcast station, or digital news site must earn an income.
The seeming conflict of those two functions – serving the public, yet making money – is often regarded cynically. Decisions about news coverage tend to be portrayed by critics as calculated to draw web traffic, raise broadcast ratings, or sell newspapers rather than to give the citizens the information they need. The truth is that good journalism is expensive, and the best news organizations invest significant sums in deeply reported projects that could never be justified in an accountant’s profit‐and‐loss ledger. If there is a pragmatic return in such projects, it is in the hope that they build the organization’s reputation as a source of reliable information.
No matter how well they do their jobs, journalists cannot expect their work to be universally acclaimed. But they have an obligation to themselves and their colleagues to never deliberately conduct themselves in a way that would justify the criticism. They have an obligation to practice sound ethics.
The Growth of Ethics Codes
For reasons that are explored in Chapter 3, journalism matured in the second half of the twentieth century. During this period, it became common for individual news organizations to articulate their ethics standards in comprehensive codes, which could be useful guides in decision‐making about the news. Today, not only professional organizations of journalists, but also individual news sites, broadcast stations, and newspapers typically have ethics codes.
There is a distinct difference in the effect of the codes adopted by organizations of professional journalists and those adopted by individual newsrooms. Although the codes of professional organizations fulfill an important purpose of establishing profession‐wide standards, they are voluntary and cannot be enforced. But, when a newsroom adopts a code, violations can be addressed by suspending or dismissing the violators. Of course, codes are valuable only to the extent that they are practiced, and newsroom leaders have a responsibility both to enforce their codes and to set an example of propriety.
Journalists new to the profession may be surprised to find that the rank‐and‐file reporters, editors, and photojournalists often are more effective than their bosses in enforcing the code. John Carroll, when he was editor of the Los Angeles Times, said that among journalists “certain beliefs are very deeply held,” and that the core of these beliefs is a newspaper’s duty to the reader – that is, the news consumer, the audience, no matter how the news is delivered.
Carroll said, “Those who transgress against the reader will pay dearly,” adding that this intensity usually is masked by a laid‐back newsroom demeanor. “There’s informality and humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in.”4 See John Carroll’s Point of View essay, “A ‘Tribal Ferocity’ Enforces the Code,” at the end of this chapter for more of his thoughts on the subject.
The Goal: Ethical Decision-Making
In this text and in the ethics course you are studying, you will continue your preparation for a journalism career by examining how good journalists make responsible decisions. The text will identify and discuss the principles of applied ethics that are a foundation for sound decision‐making. As the course progresses, you will practice your decision‐making skill in case studies. The goal is to encourage you to think critically and in concrete terms about the situation confronting you – to employ logic rather than respond reflexively.
You should know that there are capable, intelligent journalists who reject the idea that journalism ethics can be taught in a college course. They argue that journalists, and journalism students,