Journalism Ethics: A Casebook of Professional Conduct for News Media - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933338806 ISBN 13: 9781933338804

Publisher: Marion Street Press, LLC, 2011

Synopsis

Closely organized around the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics—the news industry's widely accepted "gold standard" of journalism principles—this updated edition uses real-life case studies to demonstrate how journalism students and professionals can identify and reason through ethical dilemmas. Stressing the cross-platform viability of basic ethical principles, this study features a wide selection of case studies penned by professional journalists—including several new additions—that offer examples of thoughtful, powerful, and principled reporting. Cases where regrettable decisions have taught important lessons are also included, providing a new template for analyzing moral predicaments. Examining the similarities and differences between media law and media ethics, this revised edition includes chapters such as "Seek Truth and Report It," "Minimize Harm," "Act Independently," and "Be Accountable." Describing the basic connection between ethical journalism and excellent journalism, this is a lively, succinct, and accessible discussion of how this type of reporting can be morally upheld in the present day, regardless of medium or platform.

About this title

About the Author

Fred Brown is a professor in communication ethics at the University of Denver and a principal in the media training and consulting firm Hartman & Brown, LLP. He is a former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists and remains active on their ethics committee. He writes a column on ethics for Quill magazine, a Sunday editorial page for the Denver Post, and conducts analysis for NBC. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Journalism Ethics

A Casebook of Professional Conduct for News Media

By Fred Brown

Marion Street Press

Copyright © 2011 Sigma Delta Chi Foundation and Society of Professional Journalists
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-933338-80-4

Contents

Introduction, 
PART ONE: JOURNALISM ETHICS, 
1. Ethical Thinking: History and Definitions, 
2. The Role of the Journalist, 
3. Codes of Ethics and Beyond, 
4. The Right to Be Wrong: Law and Ethics, 
PART TWO: CASE STUDIES, 
5. To Tell the Truth: Accuracy and Fairness, 
Chapter Six: Deception, 
Chapter Seven: Minimize Harm, 
Chapter Eight: Diversity, 
Chapter Nine: Conflicts of Interest, 
Chapter Ten: Photojournalism, 
Chapter Eleven: Privacy, 
Chapter Twelve: Source/Reporter Relationships, 
Chapter Thirteen: Accountability, 
APPENDIX, 
A: Ethics as a Dynamic Dialogue, 
B: The Code through the Years, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Ethical Thinking: History and Definitions

It is indeed quite possible to be an ethical person without knowing any of the history or terminology of moral reasoning. The most exemplary ethical people are, after all, those who have excellent instincts about what's right and wrong. But it can be useful to have at least some grounding in the evolution of thought that has led us to where we are today.

And where we are is not a particularly good place to be. As communicators, we may not always practice the best ethics. Journalism, in fact, finds itself spending an increasing and regrettable amount of time identifying and apologizing for its ethical lapses. This increased sensitivity and attention to ethics is a hopeful sign. At least all of this self-criticism serves to illustrate that responsible journalists, and other communicators, do have standards and moral codes, and that they find deviation from those standards unacceptable.

Ethical questions surround us on all sides. Consider: Do I have an ethical obligation to report my roommate's marijuana use to campus authorities? What is the proper relationship between a reporter and a source? When is it permissible to use deception in collecting information for a story? Should I cross a striking clerical union's picket line to attend class? When does a woman's right to control her own destiny trump her unborn child's right to life? What do I do if I think a colleague is fabricating information in his reporting?

Some of these ethical dilemmas are easier to answer than others. Most of us probably know what we would do, and maybe even could explain why we would do what we do. But it helps to know the fundamentals of moral theory so that we can compare our thinking with others who have established long-lasting ethical principles.

In the most basic terms, the best way to arrive at an ethical decision is to ask the right questions. If you can do that, and if your answers to those questions make sense to you — and if you can then explain your reasoning sensibly to other people — you've done what you need to do to reach a sound, defensible ethical decision. That's true even if someone else, given the same set of circumstances, may arrive at the opposite decision and consider it just as defensible.

Along the way to reasoning through a problem, it helps to know the terminology. For instance, there is a subtle but significant difference between morals and ethics. Morals comprise a system of beliefs. Ethics is a way to employ those beliefs in the process of reasoning. One acts ethically from a moral foundation.

Jay Black and Jennings Bryant described the difference concisely in their Introduction to Media Communications (from the Fourth Edition, Brown and Benchmark, 1995, pp. 540–541):

Ask a layperson what he or she means by ethics or morality, and you're likely to hear that these subjects deal with the nature of human values and moral conscience, of choosing and following the "right" rather than the "wrong," and of understanding and applying standards that have been set down by a group, association or community. These definitions are useful for openers, but our fuller understanding of the issues ... might be better based on some of the insights and definitions posed by philosophers over the ages.

Ethics is based on the Greek word ethos, meaning character, or what a good person is or does in order to have a good character. In general, ethics deals with the philosophical foundations of decision making, of choosing among the good and bad options that one faces. Morality, on the other hand, comes from the Latin mores, and refers to the way or manner in which people behave. Thus morality has come to mean socially approved customs, or the practice or application of ethics. (One easy way to remember the distinction, according to a philosopher with a sense of humor, is to think of ethics as behavior that occurs about the neck, and morality as behavior that occurs below the neck!)

Ethics, in short, may be seen as being concerned with that which holds society together or provides the stability and security essential to the living of human life. Ethics as a branch of philosophy involves thinking about morality, moral problems and moral judgments. It deals with "owes" and "oughts," what obligations we owe or to responsibilities we have toward our fellow humans, what we "should do" to make the world a better place. It is unlike law, which is a bottom-line, minimalistic enterprise that tells us what we can do or what we can get away with.

Understanding the Context of Moral Reasoning

Metaethics is the study of the very nature of ethics. It deals with the meaning of abstractions such as "good" or "justice." It distinguishes between true ethical problems and simple matters of taste, for example. It's nonjudgmental; a field of inquiry, not a decision-making process.

Normative ethics is the next step in this three-part continuum and is concerned with developing rules and principles for moral conduct as well as general theories of ethics. It's based on society's fundamental norms for good behavior (thus normative) and has a great deal to do with duty. An example of normative ethics: Don't lie even to get a good story.

Applied ethics is the problem-solving step. It provides road maps, using the rules of normative ethics as a guide, that show how to arrive at a defensible solution to an ethical problem. It's what students study in ethics classes.

Why Study Ethics?

The goals of learning ethics are to:

1. Stimulate your moral imagination and awareness of the consequences of your behavior.

2. Recognize ethical issues and anticipate possible dilemmas.

3. Develop your analytical skills through case studies and classroom discussions and role playing.

4. Enhance your sense of moral obligation and personal responsibility.

5. Learn to respect other points of view and tolerate disagreement.

Sources of Our Values

Our innate moral values, the places from which we begin to develop personal standards, come from several sources.

• Our parents, or the people who nurtured us in their homes as we were developing into adults, are probably our most important examples. We tend to behave the way they behaved, giving us a sense of right and wrong, offering rewards and punishment.

• Peer groups exert enormous pressure to conform. We encounter them at work, in schools, churches, social groups and among our neighbors. Peer groups are particularly influential during the adolescent years. This enormous pressure can drive us away from the best moral choices, but it also can be a force for good.

• Role models are like that, too — sometimes good, sometimes not so good. A coach, a teacher or an editor can be a good role model; a Hollywood celebrity with repeated unsuccessful encounters with drug rehabilitation can be the worst sort of example to follow.

• Institutions also give us values. Journalism as an institution has a different set of values than, say, religion. Religion is based on faith. Journalists are always questioning, skeptical, often negative.

A Brief History

The study of ethics can be traced back 2,500 years to Socrates, who traveled throughout Greece asking questions. He wanted the people he engaged in these conversations to think about why they were doing what they were doing, and to probe deeper and more broadly about concepts such as goodness and justice. The Socratic method, the constant testing of ideas through a progressive series of questions and answers, is essential to ethical decision-making,

Socrates (circa 470–399 B.C.E.) is not credited with developing any particular philosophical system, but his method, the "Socratic dialogue," is the foundation for the way of thinking that led to everything else. He believed that anyone, given time to think and question, could gain insight into universally accepted rules of moral conduct.

His protégé and disciple, Plato (circa 428–348 B.C.E.), expanded on Socrates' delving into the nature of such universal moral values as goodness and justice. He argued that justice is achieved through wisdom, consisting of a person's experience and knowledge of the world; moderation of thought and behavior in striving to reach sound ethical decisions; and courage in living up to and defending those decisions. He believed that "good" was an enduring value and that a moral person may sometimes have to defy current standards of what's moral to achieve a higher good.

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.), who studied under Plato for many years, is given credit for developing the clearest articulation of virtue ethics, which is the overarching concept and logical evolution of the thinking of the three ancient Greek philosophers. The idea is that a virtuous person will do the right thing primarily because he or she is of good character, someone whose instincts tend toward universal ideas of justice.

Using Moral Theory

In the broadest of terms, moral theories are of three types:

Deontological, or duty-based, in which the moral agent's motives are more important than the outcome.

Teleological, which emphasizes the consequences of one's actions, and

Virtue ethics, focusing more on good character than on moral behavior.

Virtue Ethics

Aristotle's golden mean theory holds that virtue, in most cases, is somewhere between the extremes. The ideal falls between doing nothing and doing too much, between overachieving and underachieving, between excess and deficiency. In contemporary journalism, the golden mean most often comes down to finding a balance between telling the truth and minimizing harm. Telling the truth can cause great discomfort to some people, adding to the grief of the bereaved, even ruining the careers of public officials or business executives.

Minimizing harm doesn't mean avoiding the truth because it may hurt, but it does at least require that a moral person understand what the consequences of his or her actions may be. The "golden mean" may also be defined as the middle path that achieves the best balance among possible outcomes. It's rarely a 50-50 balance, though, and some things are always wrong. "The very names of some things imply evil," Aristotle himself wrote, "for example, the emotions of spite, shamelessness and envy, and such actions as adultery, theft and murder."

The golden mean is rather like the golden rule, which is a fundamental creed of the Judeo-Christian ethic. "Love thy neighbor as thyself," it says. Remember that everyone — rich or poor, famous or forgotten — is as deserving of respect and fair treatment as you are. Treat them all the way you would want to be treated. Historically, it's the next significant development of moral theory after Aristotle's enduring work. It is equally as enduring and perhaps even easier to comprehend.

Deontology — Duty-Based Ethics

Perhaps a harsher version of the golden rule is Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative. Kant (1724–1804) was one of the most important figures of the 18th century intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment. His imperative holds that an ethical person should never do anything that he or she would not want to see applied as a universal standard of behavior. It's less forgiving in nature than the basic concept of the golden rule.

While the Judeo-Christian ethic elevates the dignity of all as an end in itself, Kant believed in following standards of behavior simply because they are good standards, not because of the consequences. He puts duty above all. A thinker more attuned to teleology, believing the ends justify the means, would argue that Robin Hood was good because he stole from the rich only to give to the poor. A deontologist like Kant would say Robin Hood was wrong to steal, never mind what he did with the loot.

Several Teleological Theories

Utilitarianism holds that the best ethical decision is that which produces the greatest good for the greatest number. It is one of the major systems of ethics and is important to journalists, who often argue that what they have reported is for the greater good of society. Kant would ask if your intentions were good; if you were pursuing a cause that is just. The proponents of utilitarianism, chief among them John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832),would ask how many people are going to benefit from your actions. Today's practitioners would add that you should not forget the animals, either, or the planet.

Relativism is the anti-Kant school of thought that arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. If Kant was an absolutist, obsessed with duty, thinkers such as Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and John Dewey (1859–1952) were moral libertarians. Essentially, they said the moral thing to do depends on one's point of view. "You decide what's right for you; I'll decide what's right for me." They will not pass judgment on the decisions of others. Critics say it can lead to anarchy, a way to justify whatever you feel like doing.

Egalitarianism embodies the idea that all individuals deserve equal treatment; minorities, and minority viewpoints, should be given exactly the same consideration as the majority — at least at the beginning of one's consideration of an ethical dilemma. Philosopher John Rawls (1921–2002) said this "original position" should occur behind a "veil of ignorance" in which one sets aside any preconceptions he or she may have established from parents, peer groups or institutions.

Ideally, everyone affected by the decision would enjoy an equal outcome; there should be no double standards. Rawls does concede, however, that there can be morally defensible reasons for an outcome that hurts some more than others. This is something journalists have to think about all the time — yes, minimize the harm that may come from your news coverage, but recognize that you can't totally avoid it.

— Fred Brown, SPJ Ethics Committee

Professional Journalism Organizations' Codes of Ethics

Society of Professional Journalists (adopted 1996)

Preamble

Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public 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. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society's principles and standards of practice.

Seek Truth and Report It

Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.

Journalists should:

• Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.

• Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.

• Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability.

• Always question sources' motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.

• Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.

• Never distort the content of news photos or video. Image enhancement for technical clarity is always permissible. Label montages and photo illustrations.

• Avoid misleading re-enactments or staged news events. If re-enactment is necessary to tell a story, label it.

• Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public.

• Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story.

• Never plagiarize.

• Tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly, even when it is unpopular to do so.

• Examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.

• Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Journalism Ethics by Fred Brown. Copyright © 2011 Sigma Delta Chi Foundation and Society of Professional Journalists. Excerpted by permission of Marion Street Press.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Marion Street Press, LLC
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1933338806
• ISBN 13: 9781933338804
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 328
• Editor: Brown Fred