University of Botswana
Department of Media Studies
BMS 226 ETHICS FOR MEDIA PROFESSIONALS
HANDOUT 6: INTERNATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS FOR JOURNALISTS
What are the main concerns about journalism?
Journalists are very important in any society. They give us information about what is going on in the world and newspapers, radio and TV give space for people to discuss ideas and to make important decisions.
People get information about what is going on in the world from journalists. We do not have personal experience of the news. This applies to what is going on in the next village as well as in the next continent.
Journalists decide what is important – what to print or broadcast – and what is not. What journalists decide to leave out and not tell us is just as important as what they do tell us.
People must be able to trust journalists to do the right thing and tell the truth.
But unfortunately, there is a lot of concern that journalists are not behaving well and instead of giving us useful serious news they give us too much that is not serious. Such as the private lives of celebrities and other famous people. This tabloid journalism has given all journalism a bad name.
There are also worries that journalists are using bad methods – sometimes illegally – to get information. There was a big scandal recently in the UK about the News of the World newspaper that paid a private eye (private detective) to bug (listen in illegally) telephones to get private information about people.
International Principles of Professional Ethics in Journalism
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has drawn up the International Principles of Professional Ethics in Journalism, which talks about the rights and responsibilities of journalists. It has these principles:
Principle I: People’s right to true information
Principle II: The journalist’s dedication to objective reality
Principle III: The journalist’s social responsibility
Principle IV: The journalist’s professional integrity
Principle V: Public access and participation
Principle VI: Respect for privacy and human dignity
Principle VII: Respect for public interest
Principle VIII: Respect for universal values and diversity of cultures
Principle IX: Elimination of war and other great evils confronting humanity
Principle X: Promotion of a new world information and communication order
(For more details, see Handout7).
Codes of Conduct
The UNESCO principles are only principles and are very difficult for journalists to act upon in their day-to-day work. Codes of ethical conduct are a more practical way to deal with ethics.
Itai Himelboim and Yehiel Limor say codes of ethics are the most common way for journalists and other media professionals to declare the values that guide their work, show their role in society and establish the professional expectations (norms) they consider correct.
There are other ways to ensure journalists are accountable to the public. These include organisations (e.g. press councils) that regulate the way journalists and the companies they work for should behave.
Codes of ethics have a number of objectives, including making journalists look dignified in the eyes of the public and protecting journalists against the state making laws that might restrict the way journalists are able to work.
A voluntary ethical code shows that the media are committed to ethical behaviour. The codes can also define the rights as well as responsibilities of journalists. This can protect journalists from the owners of media companies who might want to exploit the journalists.
But because ethical codes are usually voluntary they can be difficult to enforce – there is no ‘law court’ to decide whether a journalist has not behaved in an ethical way and to inflict punishment if they have not.
It is difficult for an ethical code of conduct to cover all the possible cases journalists are likely to meet on the job.
Denis McQuail says there are many different codes of ethical conduct, depending on the conventions and traditions of the country concerned and on who writes the code – whether it is publishers, editors, journalists or an external regulatory body.
Most codes concentrate on matters to do with providing reliable information and on avoiding distortion, suppression, bias, sensationalism and the invasion of privacy.
Codes of practice drawn up by publishers often include the need for freedom to publish and independence from groups who have their own (vested) interests, such as governments.
It is impossible to separate press responsibility from the media companies that produce journalism and the nation state and its political system and institutions. An authoritarian state which is ruled over by a single person or family or group will have a different view of journalism and will permit journalists to do less than a liberal pluralist (democratic state) that allows freedom of the press and different points of view to be expressed.
Reuters Handbook on codes of conduct
The Reuters international news agency has its own code of conduct for journalists.
Reuters journalists must be independent, free from bias and executed with the utmost integrity. These are our core values and stem from the Reuters Trust Principles.
Reuters also values accuracy, speed and exclusivity.
According to Reuters, journalists are to fulfil the highest aspirations of the profession - to search for and report the truth, fairly, honestly and unfailingly. Beyond the obvious, such as plagiarism, fabrication (making things up) or bribe-taking, journalism is a profession that has to be governed by ethical guiding principles rather than by rigid rules.
Guiding principles liberate, and lead to better journalism. Rigid rules constrain, and restrict journalists’ ability to operate.
Reuters says, ‘What must unite us is honesty and integrity. We often face difficult choices in the pursuit of better stories and superior images. In such situations there are several ‘right’ answers and the rules we use run out. We can, however, guard against damage to our reputation through a shared understanding of the fundamental principles that govern our work.’
The 10 Absolutes of Reuters Journalism
1. Always hold accuracy sacrosanct
2. Always correct an error openly
3. Always strive for balance and freedom from bias
4. Always reveal a conflict of interest to a manager
5. Always respect privileged information
6. Always protect their sources from the authorities
7. Always guard against putting their opinion in a news story
8. Never fabricate or plagiarise
9. Never alter a still or moving image beyond the requirements of normal image enhancement
10. Never pay for a story and never accept a bribe
READING:
Itai Himelboim and Yehiel Limor, Media perception of freedom of the press: A comparative international analysis of 242 codes of ethics, in Journalism 2008; 9; 235. This is available on the Internet (put the title into Google) but can be difficult to download. If you have problems Dr Rooney has the article as a PDF file.
Denis McQuail, Mass Communication Theory, an Introduction, London: Sage, 1994. Chapter 5, Normative Theories of Media Performance.
A version of this book is on the Internet at
EthicNet for a collection of codes of journalism ethics from most European countries http://ethicnet.uta.fi/
Handbook of Reuters Journalism http://www.reuterslink.org/resources/resource3.htm
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