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Journalistic standards

Journalistic standards and ethics are a common set of principles governing the journalism profession, especially news reporting. They may also be known as a journalist's "code of ethics," the "canons of journalism", or "professional behavior" in the field. These standards are embodied in tradition, current practice, and written codes prepared by media associations and individual outlets.

Common elements include truthfulness and accuracy; objectivity, impartiality and fairness; and accountability in the acquisition of information and its delivery. Like many broader ethical systems, the journalistic code also values limitation of harm (for example, withholding the names of children from reports, or not disclosing information that would compromise physical security of a building or military unit).

Standard procedures and ethical rules can help reporters and news organizations protect themselves from conflicts of interest, maintain their credibility and reputations, make consistent and moral choices, prevent lawsuits, and perhaps to be more informative and to better serve the public interest.

Contents
1 Codes of practice
2 Common elements

2.1 Objectivity
2.2 Sources
2.3 Accuracy and standards for factual reporting
2.4 Slander and libel considerations
2.5 Harm reduction
2.6 Presentation

3 Self-regulation
4 Standards and ethics in practice

4.1 Standards and reputation
4.2 Adoption and compliance issues
4.3 Relationship with freedom of the press
4.4 Variations, violations, and controversies
4.5 Taste, decency and acceptability
4.6 Campaigning in the media
4.7 Investigative methods
4.8 Science issues

5 Parallels outside journalism
6 External links
7 See also

Codes of practice

While the United States and European countries have led in 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 a substantial overlap among mainstream publications and societies.

One of the leading voices in the U.S. on the subject of Journalistic Standards and Ethics is the Society of Professional Journalists.[1] The Preamble to its Code of Ethics states:

...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.

The Radio-Television News Directors Association, an organiation exclusively centered on electronic journalism, maintains a code of ethics centering on -- public trust, truthfullness, fairness, integrity, independence and accountability.[2] RTDNA publishes a pocket guide (PDF file) to these standards.

Examples of journalistic codes of ethics held by international news gathering organizations may be be found as follows:

Common elements

The primary themes common to most codes of journalistic standards and ethics are the following.

Objectivity

  • Unequivocal separation between news and opinion. In-house editorials and opinion (Op-Ed) pieces are clearly separated from news pieces. News reporters and editorial staff are distinct.
  • Unequivocal separation between advertisements and news. All advertisements must be clearly identifiable as such.
  • Reporter must avoid conflicts of interest — incentives to report a story with a given slant. This includes not taking bribes and not reporting on stories which affect the reporter's personal, economic, or political interests.
  • Competing points of view are balanced and fairly characterized.
  • Persons who are the subject of adverse news stories are allowed a reasonable opportunity to respond to the adverse information before the story is published or broadcast.
  • Interference with reporting by any entity, including censorship, must be disclosed.

Sources

  • Confidentiality of anonymous sources (see news source).
  • Avoidance of anonymous sources when possible.
  • Accurate attribution of statements made by individuals or other news media.
  • Pictures, sound, and quotations must not be presented in a misleading context (or lack thereof). Simulations, reenactments, alterations, and artistic imaginings must be clearly labelled as such, if not avoided entirely.
  • Plagiarism is strongly stigmatized and in many cases illegal (see copyright).

Accuracy and standards for factual reporting

  • Reporters are expected to be as accurate as possible given the time alloted to story preparation and the space available, and to seek reliable sources.
  • 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
  • Corrections are published when errors are discovered
  • 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).
  • 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.

Slander and libel considerations

  • Reporting the truth is never libel, which makes accuracy and attribution very important.
  • Private persons have privacy rights which must be balanced against the public interest in reporting information about them. Public figures have fewer privacy rights.
  • Publishers vigorously defend libel lawsuits filed against their reporters

Harm reduction

  • Responsible reporters avoid publishing information would could cause serious human harm, such as timely tactical military information, information that would compromise an ongoing criminal investigation, or information that could lead to physical harm to the source or subject. This does not preclude disclosing classified information, publishing leaks, or reporting negative information about people, if it is in the public interest to do so.
  • Images or graphic details that may be upsetting to some audience members are handled responsibly. Some view any self-censorship on these issues to be a dishonest distortion of the news; others feel that in cases where the facts can be reported accurately and vividly without upsetting images or descriptions, the latter can be safely left out. Warnings to the audience about upcoming material are a common compromise.
  • Some media outlets refrain from reporting on early results while an election is actually taking place, so as not to unduly influence the outcome. Election results also generate intense public interest which acts as a strong pressure to limit any delays in reporting to the bare minimum, if not to report on events as they happen (for real-time media).

Presentation

In addition to ethical standards, there are also common standards of quality of presentation, including:

  • Correctly spoken or written language (often in a widely spoken and formal dialect, such as Standard English)
  • Clarity
  • Brevity (or depth, depending on the niche of the publisher)

Self-regulation

In addition to codes of ethics, many news organizations maintain an in-house Ombudsman whose role is, in part, to keep news organizations honest and accountable. The ombudsman is intended to mediate in conflicts stemming from internal and or external pressures, and to maintain accountability to the public for news reported. Also, to foster self-criticism and to encourage adherence to both codified and uncodified ethics and standards.

The alternative is an industry-wide self-regulation body, such as the Press Complaints Commission, set up by UK newspapers. Such a body is capable perhaps of applying fairly consistent standards, and of dealing with a higher volume of complaints, but may not escape criticisms of being toothless.

Standards and ethics in practice

See main articles: journalism scandals, media bias, and yellow journalism

As with other ethical codes, there is perennial concern that the standards of journalism are being eroded. One of the most controversial issues in modern reporting is media bias, especially on political issues, but also with regard to cultural and other issues. Sensationalism is also a common complaint. Minor factual errors are also extremely common, as almost anyone who is familiar with the subject of a particular report will quickly realize.

There are also some wider concerns, as the media continue to change, for example that the brevity of news reports and use of soundbites has reduced fidelity to the truth, and may contribute to a lack of needed context for public understanding. From outside the profession, the rise of news management contributes to the real possibility that news media may be deliberately manipulated. Selective reporting (spiking, double standards) are very commonly alleged against newspapers, and by their nature are forms of bias not easy to establish, or guard against.

This section does not address specifics of such matters, but issues of practical compliance, as well as differences between professional journalists on principles.

Standards and reputation

Even among serious news organizations that adopt and attempt to uphold the common standards of journalism described above, adherence and general quality varies considerably. The professionalism and reliability of a news organization is a major factor in its long-term reputation, both with the public and within the industry.

Among the most respected publications, programs, and broadcast networks are:

Local publications and programs are generally less respected and in some cases are somewhat lax about upholding journalistic integrity. For example, it is not unheard of for a small-town or neighborhood newspaper to editorialize about local goings-on in news reports.

Adoption and compliance issues

Advocacy journalists by definition reject "objectivity", but usually at least attempt to maintain the other common standards and ethics. New Journalism and Gonzo journalism also reject these traditional style and standards.

Tabloid journalists are often accused of sacrificing accuracy and the personal privacy of their subjects in order to boost sales. Supermarket tabloids are often focused on entertainment rather than news. A few have "news" stories that are so outrageous that they are widely read for entertainment purposes, not for information. Some tabloids do purport to maintain common journalistic standards, but may fall far short in practice. Others make no such claims.

Some "news" publications and programs are intended to be satire. Humorous articles also sometimes appear on April Fool's Day.

Relationship with freedom of the press

In countries without freedom of the press, the majority of people who report the news may not follow the above-described standards of journalism. Very often non-free media are prohibited from criticizing the national government, and in many cases are required to distribute propaganda as if it were news. Various other forms of censorship may restrict reporting on issues the government deems sensitive.

Variations, violations, and controversies

There are a number of finer points of journalistic procedure which 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.

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 details, less speculative, and more thoroughly verified pieces a day or two later than many other newspapers. 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.

Are your headlines fresh? MSNBC - up to the minute every 15 minutes.
-- A billboard advertisement for MSNBC, a 24-hour cable news network. (seen 13 Apr 2005)

Laws with regard to personal privacy, official secrets, and media disclosure of names and facts from criminal cases and civil lawsuits differ widely, and journalistic standards may vary accordingly. Different organizations may have different answers to questions about when it is journalistically acceptable to skirt, circumvent, or even break these regulations. Another example of differences surrounding harm reduction is the reporting of preliminary election results. In the United States, some news organizations feel that it is harmful to the democratic process to report exit poll results or preliminary returns while voting is still open. Such reports may influence people who vote later in the day, or who are in western time zones, in their decisions about how and whether or not to vote. There is also some concern that such preliminary results are often inaccurate and may be misleading to the public. Other outlets feel that this information is a vital part of the transparency of the election process, and see no harm (if not considerable benefit) in reporting it.

Taste, decency and acceptability

Different audiences have different reactions to depictions of violence, nudity, coarse language, or of people in any other situation which is unacceptable to or stigmatized by the local culture or laws (such as the consumption of alcohol, ], illegal drug use, scatological images, etc.). Even with similar audiences, different organizations and even individual reporters have different standards and practices. These decisions often revolve around what facts are necessary for the audience to know.

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 which 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 which 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 considerable from time to time, from organization to organization, and from country to country. (See also: Military journalism .)

Campaigning in the media

Many print publications take advantage of their wide readership and print persuasive pieces in the form of unsigned editorials which represent the official position of the organization. Despite the ostensible separation between editorial writing and news gathering, this practice may cause some people to doubt the political objectivity of the publication's news reporting. (Though usually unsigned editorials are accompanied by a diversity of signed opinions from other perspectives.)

Other publications and many broadcast media only publish opinion pieces which are attributed to a particular individual (who may be an in-house analyst) or to an outside entity. One particularly controversial question is whether or not media organizations should endorse political candidates for office. Political endorsements create more opportunities to construe favoritism in reporting, and can create a perceived conflicts of interest.

Investigative methods

Investigative journalism is largely an information-gathering exercise, looking for facts that are not easy to obtain by simple requests and searches, or are actively being concealed, suppressed or distorted. Where investigative work involves undercover journalism or use of whistleblowers, and even more if it resorts to covert methods more typical of private detectives or even spying, it brings a large extra burden on ethical standards.

Anonymous sources are a two-edged sword - 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 anonymity may make it difficult or impossible for the reporter to verify the source's statements. Sometimes sources hide their identities from the public because their statements would otherwise quickly be discredited. Thus, statements attributed to anonymous sources may carry more weight with the public than they might if they were attributed. (See also: news source.)

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.

Science issues

The mainstream press is often criticized for poor accuracy in reporting science news. Many reporters are not scientists, and are thus not familiar with the material they are summarizing. Technical information is also difficult to contextualize for lay audiences, and short-form reporting makes providing background, context, and clarification even harder. Food scares are an example of the need for responsible science journalism, as are stories connected with the safety of medical procedures.

Parallels outside journalism

Wikipedia itself (though an encyclopedia and not a news-reporting organization) maintains a number of policy directives to guide its contributors, chief among them being neutrality and accuracy. Other encyclopedias have similar standards, which are shared in academe; and many non-fiction authors hold themselves to such goals.

Legal rules of evidence and the scientific method contain rules and procedures for factual accuracy which are similar in some ways to journalistic methods and standards.

External links

See also
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