The Means DO Matter When It Comes to the Media

Kerry Tuttle
kt202110@ohio.edu

The Means DO Matter When It Comes to the Media

"It's get to the goal line as fast as you can, and the means don't matter." - Leonard Pitts Jr., syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald and victim of plagiarism. 

Ethics. It may sound like a subject matter that consists solely of lists upon lists of codes and values, which it does of course, but it also should be the most important word in a journalist's vocabulary. It is an umbrella under which keywords like "transparency," "truth" and "accountability" fall. Unfortunately, there can be slip-ups when it comes to ethical journalism and this blog post will attempt to provide examples of those slip-ups.

Transparency
The transparency of a news story and the media outlet that ran it is vital in today's world. The means of how reported information was acquired needs to be readily available to the public. "Explaining is all the rage," as an American Journal Review article puts it...or at least it should be. Enter anonymous sources. This article calls Politico an addict and provides 11 examples of the news outlet using anonymous sources in its reporting. This is not the type of transparency that journalists should strive for, especially since the sources add nothing to the story in many of the example cases.

Truth
It is a journalist's job to report the truth. The public understands this, but they also do not hesitate to questions stories in which they are unsure of the validity or ethics of the content. Journalists contribute to democracy by keeping the government honest. The general public contributes to democracy by keeping journalists and the media honest. It is in our code of ethics to always tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and having the public there to ensure this is very important.

A truthful journalist does not report opinion as fact.

Accountability  
When an error is made in reporting, a media outlet must hold itself accountable. Errors are often made in the rush to be first to report a story. One example of this was the Boston bombings in which CNN, Fox and the A.P. incorrectly reported that an arrest had been made in the case. When the F.B.I. criticized the news stations for their mistake in "unverified reporting," they retracted the information, but both stations shied away from holding themselves accountable. CNN claimed that it had three credible sources that had given them information and Fox simply said that a confirmation had been issued to them when it should not have been. The Associated Press did not even acknowledge that it had misreported any information.

Judy Muller, a USC journalism professor and former news correspondent, wrote, "The rush to be first has so thoroughly swallowed up the principle of being right and first that it seems a little egg on the face is now deemed worth the risk.”