Ethical Accountability

Thomas Carberry
tc173113@ohio.edu

Media Ethics 

There are many questions to be considered as a journalist in a time when media favorability is at an all-time low. Of course, asking yourself tough questions that bring you to realizations of your own flaws and how you might be able to correct those flaws for your readership and the people you write on behalf of will always be an incredibly important part of journalism. However, at this exact moment when journalism is being held to highest level of scrutiny it is increasingly important to watch your tracks. Not simply because the world is watching but because journalists themselves have played a crucial role in their early demise.

Rekindling the fire that used burn for the media, following Watergate and the Vietnam War, requires that every journalist gets back down to the basics of media ethics. That all starts by asking yourself questions about everything you’ve done before you run any story.

The questions you ask yourself should be as paranoid as possible. Assume that the worst will the come of any given situation so that you can readily address the conflict. Approaching a situation having already entertained the possibilities of what your actions can cause, especially the negatives, will make it so you don’t step on anyone’s feet or your own in the process.

The whole concept of questioning everything you’ve done, whether it be the means by which you got information, the way you presented the information or the simply the nature of the information itself, all comes back to the key ethical concept of accountability. Have you held yourself accountable for the actions you’ve done, or have you neglected your ethical values for a stronger story that fits the narrative you want to present.

Without accountability journalism is nothing but speculation on the current affairs. If you don't hold yourself personally accountable then someone else will. 

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As journalism students there are many ethical dilemmas that surface daily. The same questions should be asked of yourself at all levels of journalism. Knowing your own ethical boundaries is an important thing to learn early on. Often the process of learning one's ethical boundaries happens by making mistakes and living with the consequences. That's all the more a reason to put yourself in situations where the questions you ask yourself will likely be hard to answer. Don't seek out ethical dilemmas, but don't get so cozy in your comfort-zone that you neglect anything unfamiliar. 

When you find yourself in an ethical bind and begin to ask yourself questions about how you should go forward it is incredibly important that you have answers to those questions. That is why having a personal code of ethics is so important for any journalist. All personal codes of ethics should be in some way modeled after the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics, or the code of ethics the publication you work for adheres to. Seeking truth, minimizing harm, acting independently, and being accountable and transparent are the basics of any code of ethics in journalism.