Ethics in Journalism

Frequently, journalists are faced with ethical dilemmas where they must use their own moral conscience to decide what information to publish and what to leave out of a publication. The society of professional journalists has laid out a set of ethics that journalists should adhere to when making difficult decisions. This includes four aspects that the society believes all journalists should adhere to.

1. Seek Truth and Report it. Journalists should be looking for the truth and reporting on things going on in society in order to inform the public. This includes verification of facts in order to make sure that the entire story is completely true and free of factual errors. Additionally, journalists should not use headlines or photo that misrepresents the story. Rather, readers should be able to read a story and trust that it is true.

2. Journalists should minimize harm. Journalists should not seek to embarrass people for wrongdoing, rather they should report the truth in a fair and accurate way so the public is informed and the sources of information and the center of the story are not harmed. This is especially true in covering court proceedings.

3. Journalists should act independently. This means that the business aspect of the news should not affect the stories that are being published. The journalists first obligation is to the public and they should seek to inform the public and act independently of any corporations that the news organization is affiliated with.

4. Journalists should be accountable for what they publish. They should be willing to back up their information and answer questions their audience has. The newsroom should be transparent and the audience should know how news is being gathered and reported.

Many news organizations have an additional code of ethics in addition to the society of professional journalists. Among these organizations is the New York Times who state the purpose of their company and then explain how they gather news and then explain their code of ethics in every department of the news room.

An example of ethics in the newsroom would be the Pentagon Papers. Although this information was considered top secret by the government, the New York Times and Washington Post believed that seeking truth and reporting it outweighed any government interest. This in turn resulted in one of the greatest steps forward for the First Amendment when the New York Times won the Supreme Court Case making prior restraint unconstitutional. An article by Ben Easaugh explained the ethical dilemmas that faced the reporters, publishers, and reporters as they debated whether to publish the information contained in the Pentagon Papers.