By: Victoria
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As
this blog has uncovered the week prior, media exists in many various forms.
This week I will focus on journalism but more particularly, all the ethical and
moral decisions that journalists have to make. The reason why I’ve chosen journalism
among all the other forms of media, is that, the primary purpose of news is to
educate and inform their readers – and with that comes a lot of responsibility,
not only on the journalist’s part, but on the entire paper as well.
In
this post, I refer to NYT’s code of ethics which can be found here.
It
is unsurprising that the first rule in the book is to report everything as
impartially as possible. This means portraying both sides of the story and
giving equal amount of coverage to them. It means, not coloring the article
with one’s own personal biases and opinions. The neutrality, especially when it
comes to reporting on politics, is necessary. But as noted in my previous post,
I understand that this is sometimes hard to do.
Even more so when we cannot control our own personal biases that may
unconsciously come through in our writing. But nonetheless we must try our best
to eliminate this. Hence, the use of the words “as possible”.
Many
of the rules try to address the problem of impartiality. Romantic relationships
with sources must be declared, information gathered by journalists may not be
used to his or her advantage, journalists may not accept gifts, among many
others. I think NYT is going to great lengths to protect their neutrality as
they realize the level of influence they have over their readers, which is
quite a large portion of society – not just in America, but the rest of the
world.
It
is also important to note that advertising may also affect a newspaper’s neutrality.
A study has been done that shows a positive correlation between advertisers and
media bias. A huge portion of a newspaper’s profit is through advertising
revenue. Advertisers can control content by threatening to pull out when the
content is not their favor (Ellman and Germano, 28). Therefore, there is a
section in the handbook too, about proper dealing with advertisers to try to
prevent this from happening.
As
mentioned above about the responsibility that news organizations have, it is
apt that NYT has a section in their handbook solely dedicated to the “duty to
[their] readers”. It is even written in the section that the “readers are our
employers”, which I feel, says a lot about their accountability.
When
chasing their stories, journalists cannot “inquire pointlessly into someone’s
else personal life.” This is about respecting the interviewee and his or her
privacy. If it does not pertain to the story, or is not a critical part of the
story, then the journalist must respect the right of the interviewee to
withhold such information. They may not then pressure or assure favorable
coverage in exchange for the information.
The
Society of Professional Journalists also has its own code of ethics that
oversees all journalists regardless of the publications they write for. In
general, I would like to believe that all journalists abide by these rules,
with the exception of tabloids, perhaps.
In
order to be a well-respected journalist in this industry, it will be beneficial
to follow this code. As a journalist, one wields incredible power and one must
not forget that people look to journalists as reliable sources of information.
Works
Cited:
Ellman,
Matthew and Germano, Fabrizio. “What Do The Papers Sell? A Model of Advertising
and Media Bias” Mar. 2008, http://www.iae.csic.es/investigatorsMaterial/a8287092114archivoPdf1062.pdf.
Accessed 20 Sep. 2016
“Ethical
Journalism” New York Times, Sep. 2004, http://www.nytco.com/wp-content/uploads/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904-1.pdf.
Accessed 19 Sep. 2016.
“SPJ
Code of Ethics” Society of Professional
Journalists, Sep. 2014, http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp. Accessed 20 Sep.
2016.
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