Ethics and Eloquence in Journalism: An Approach to Press Accountability (original) (raw)
Related papers
On the Unfortunate Divide between Media Ethics and Media Law
The divide between press freedom and press accountability is of a piece with the broader divide between media law and media ethics. Seeking a remedy, this paper draws on scholarly attempts to unify ethics and law by prioritizing the public act of discursive justification to provide an intellectual resource that recovers the role of the community in the theory and practice of journalism and law. By constructing a conceptual foundation to bridge these divides, this paper aspires to improve the prospects for developing an overarching normative framework and pedagogy cultivating the principles that clarify the rights and responsibilities of an independent and democratic press.
2014
The landscape in which journalists now work is substantially different to that of the twentieth century. The rise of digital and social media necessitates a new way of considering the ethical questions facing practicing journalists, and this volume aims to consider the various individual, cultural, and institutional influences that have an impact on journalistic ethics today. This book of essays is a useful provocation on a subject that has had far less consideration in the academy than it deserves, writes Angela Phillips.
Toward a humanistic turn for a more ethical journalism
Journalism
This article argues that the social scientific epistemology that has dominated journalism for the past half-century has devalued the moral implications of public affairs and deprived citizens of the ethical tools necessary to make humane political decisions. Reviewing the contingent history of the integration of journalistic and social scientific methods leading to journalism’s computational turn, the essay calls for a humanistic reconceptualization away from journalists’ role as political interpreters toward a comparable role as moral interpreters.
Groenhart, H. (2013). Five arguments for public media accountability.
Paper presented at the conference Future of journalism, Cardiff, 2013.
Both in academy and society critics disagree whether or how quality of journalism should be regulated. Proponents for press regulation, either harmed or appalled by apparent malpractices of news media companies, are usually contested by a persistent believe among journalists and policy makers in journalism’s autonomy. This disagreement is partly due to a confusing vocabulary on public media accountability (PMA). Drawing on literature review, qualitative interviews with journalists (N= 45) and focus groups of news users (N = 33) – part of a dissertation research on PMA – this paper disentangles vocabulary and presents five arguments for PMA: improvement-by-sanction; self-legitimation; community managing; business profit and operational efficiency. Each argument is set up around typical interpretations of the notion of the apparent state of journalism, responsibility, transparency and dialogue. Much potential of PMA is wasted because professionals and companies define it mainly from an improvement-by-sanction discourse and subsequently reject it, claiming professional autonomy. Contrastingly to the mainly normative discourse in literature, this study explains the emerging interest in transparency and dialogue in journalism by means of consumer loyalty and innovating journalistic practices. This has consequences for both journalism education and newsroom policy. If any, press regulation should only be articulated in terms of news media companies’ openness of profit margins and quality investment on the one hand and stimulating newsroom transparency on the other.
Comunicação e Sociedade, 2014
Technological advances have modified news media practices, introduced alternative formats for conveying information, and are transforming journalistic messages. However, the essential principles governing journalistic practice, those which the ethical codes support and enshrine, remain unaltered. The media outlets and journalists are not unaware of the necessary adaptations to their working lives which this situation demands, but editors and managers find it difficult to accept, and therefore incorporate, those emerging trends which would permit a real improvement in the quality of the products they create and offer to society: firstly, the introduction of ethical standards (ISO standards, ethics seals) into production, and secondly, the channelling of citizens’ active participation in the reporting process (transmedia storytelling, social media). These are only being assimilated slowly and ineffectively. The media sector business model has to embrace and integrate both these realit...
Journalism’s road codes: The enduring nature of common ethical standards
Pacific Journalism Review
Journalistic principles and codes of practice are manifestations of a desire to be seen as socially responsible. Their significance has never been in doubt but the failure to adhere to them has been brought into sharp public focus by the News International phone hacking scandal and subsequent investigations in to news media regulation in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. This article compares codes of practice across the English-speaking world and finds significant similarities in what is expected of professional journalists by their employers and professional bodies, although there are variations in the extent to which the principles of responsible journalism are followed. The means by which journalists and media companies are held accountable is challenging various jurisdictions. However, the principles to be followed are likely to remain unchanged because they are based on a pragmatic approach to shielding individuals from harm at the hands of journalists.
Ethics of Journalism Challenged
Journalistica
The article examines Finnish news professionals’ views on the ethical challenges that ensue from emerging and intertwining forms of local professional journalism and communications. Besides describing the current situation, the article employs data from a survey of editors-in-chief to investigate how news professionals anticipate the relationship between journalism and communications evolving in the future. Respondents perceived a blurring of the boundary between local journalism and communications. They observed economic pressures creating incentives for news media to compromise their journalistic ethics and ethical concerns arising from professional communications’ adoption of journalistic practices. Editors-in-chief maintained that the boundaries between journalism and other forms of communication are clear in their media but indistinct in other local news media outlets and in society in general. They predicted an ambiguous, even grim, future of local news media in Finland. Howev...
Ethics in Journalism as a Basis for the Journalistic Profession
E-Theologos. Theological revue of Greek Catholic Theological Faculty, 2011
Ethics in Journalism as a Basis for the Journalistic Profession Ethically tense situations which include a conflict of values or various natures or principles commonly appear in the media, as well as within the journalistic profession. In such cases it is very difficult to find ideal solutions. The role of the journalist is to seek solutions that are in the spirit of truth, objectivity, impartiality and at the same time provide a public service. Journalists must act socially responsibly on a whole range of issues, but also remain loyal to their employers. In this context, it is necessary to distinguish between the ethics of journalists of the public service and those of the tabloid media.
MEDIA ETHICS: A Call to Responsible Journalism
2008
For many years now, globally, the media has assumed and reinforced its important role as a legitimate reflection of public interest and opinion. This is very true of the Malawian media which is fast becoming a strong pillar, catalyst and tool of democracy since 1994 when Malawi re-embraced multi-party democracy with a liberalised, plural media. The power and apparent influence of the media was long realised time in memorial. All governments since independence, corporate organisations, influential and powerful politicians and individuals have sought ways and means to control and regulate the media not only by wanting to limit its legitimate right to write, broadcast and publish freely but also to posse it, manipulate it, subject it to mere puppets that can be pulled by the string and as we observe today to reduce the media to tools of third grade propaganda. Luckily, global, regional and local trends in good governance coupled with a Malawian constitution that provides for freedom of expression and above all media institutions that safeguards the freedom of the media through self- regulation and advocacy, seem to be working in favour of the media by advancing the principle that a free media is one of the pre-requisites for good governance and a legitimate voice of public opinion and interest. However, the threat to media freedom seems to be beyond the powers that we know to have an insatiable desire to restrict the media. Malawian journalism, in some of its quarters, plays betrayal. This presentation discusses what might be a grey area in the Malawian media, the ethical conduct that brings about a responsible and credible media that can truly be a representative of public interest.