How Ethical Can a Journalist Be?

William Ashton

wa054010@ohio.edu

 http://www2.wlu.edu/images/journalism/signature/journalism_ethics.jpg

Rules and Ethics

As I was reading Steven Knowlton and Bill Reader's "Moral Reasoning For Journalists," one point that struck me was their notation on the norms of journalistic rules. In this section, they discuss how, commonly, journalists have a ground set of codes that they follow from The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), which the authors said journalists often treat as scripture when adhering to their journalistic efforts. But, in a telling piece of information, Knowlton and Reader are quick to note that these "rules" are commonly changing with each yearly addition, meaning that the rules that these journalists try to keep to within each passing year is never really consistent. Their takeaway from this note was to mention that "a journalist should be concerned with ethics, not just rules." This is something that I agree with, wholeheartedly, but it was something that also got me thinking in broader strokes. Namely, this made me ask the question, "If the rules that we hold dear to us are constantly changing, does this mean that ethics are changing, if slightly, too? If so, just how ethicial can one be as a journalist?"

The Evolution of Ethics

After thinking this over, what I believe is the answer to this question is that it is not so much that ethics are changing these days as they are evolving. In our constantly changing world of technology and growing advancements in it for our field, we have to ask ourselves new questions that we never were able to ask before. For example, today, journalists may have to decide if what they post on Twitter is going to cost them their creditability or even their job. But 10 years ago, of course, that question wasn't even a possibility. Therefore, the future of journalism is going to be holding questions to which we have no clue what we are going to be asking. So, ultimately, what should truly be asked is whether or not what we are deciding is ethical is ethical today. 

In his discussion of this question, Craig Silverman, of Poynter, said that the core of ethics are, no matter the time, striving for the human connection. He believes that the heart of journalism is not based on simply telling the story and facts, but to "connect with them through stories, shared experiences and the important developments in our world. In order to enable that, we must act with humanity and with the values and emotions that inspire human connection." As we grow more as a social media society, we learn that we have the ability to connect to our readers, viewers and other audiences in ways that journalists could never even imagine before. With this, we have to keep in mind a new level of ethics, some of which are not completely well-known. 

So, what is the next step?

At this time, I don't think anyone can say for sure. But, ultimately, in order to be the best journalists we can be, we have to make sure that we are striving to be as moral as we can be. Ultimately, the question of how ethical a journalist can be is unanswerable, especially today when the field is going through its revision. But, as Kira Goldenberg argues in the Columbia Journalism Review, "(We) journalists may lose relevance unless we learn to work within rules we don’t always get to make." Even though we don't understand all the rules, we must ultimately follow them the best we can for the greater good of our profession. By following the rules and the ethics of journalism today, we strive to keep the medium in the best quality we possible can. So, even though there is no definitive answer to the question, there is a moral one, and it's the best answer we can give, at least at this time.