Journalistic Ethics In The 21st Century

Ryan Severance
RS482415@ohio.edu

Today's aspiring journalist have quite an imposing set of hurdles placed before them. Whether they're dealing with an epidemic of "fake news" or desperately trying to reestablish their sinking credibility with the public, journalist today seem beset on all sides by politicians, citizens, and sponsors who find their work wholly unsatisfactory. One article in The New Ethics of Journalism aims to equip tomorrow's reporters with the slings and arrows necessary to win the battle over truth, and in doing so may have established the three key principles which could safeguard 21st century journalism against the cries of "fake news!" and "biased media!" heard all too often today.

Source: The BBC - "The Rise and Rise of Fake News"

The New Ethics of Journalism's article takes care not to stray too far from journalism's modern foundations; the pursuit of truth is still the primary goal of journalist, it assures, and journalist can't be permitted to violate their ethical principles of outlet's norms for the sake of a faux "scoop" which might generate clicks.

Nonetheless, the article goes on to address many of the problems facing journalist today, and finds that many of yesterday's principles will be unsuitable for tomorrow's media demands. Perhaps the greatest ethics gymnastics journalist will need to contort to is the transformation from "acting independently" into "reporting transparently."

Recognizing that true "independence" as we understand it now, in terms both politically and financially, won't be achievable to many journalist in the future, the article instead recommends that journalist adopt a tradition of transparency. While it may be impossible for the journalist of the 21st century to remain independent of government subsidies or a corporate payroll, to name only a few of tomorrow's rapidly growing information patrons, it will still be within their power to clearly explain the process of reporting to ensure to the public the news being conveyed is legitimate.

Similarly, yesteryear's idea of "minimizing harm" has been transformed into "engage community as an end, rather than as a means." This more passionate approach to reporting focuses on the distinctly human-impact that powerful journalism often has, and encourages journalist to understand the needs of the community they're reporting on.

This new principle also places a high value on diversity of opinion and experiences, something sorely lacking from many of today's newsrooms which suffer from political polarization and rampant sexism. But will this new approach to journalism do enough to curb its internal demons while sating its ever-emboldened external demonizers?

Journalist of tomorrow may find themselves entering into a professional ecosystem so plagued by bias and hampered by public mistrust that they find it impossible to stick to their ethical guns while also making a viable living for themselves. It's well established that today's readers tune out when the message they're reading disagrees with their internal opinions; are tomorrow's readers, who are likely to be even more polarized and suffer from greater exposure to "fake news", likely be any different?

These principles, applied appropriately by journalist with strong ethics and principles, will surely help dispel the modern phenomenon of throwing all news into disrepute based on one specific fabrication or error. Whether they alone are sufficient to restore journalism to the good graces of the public remains to be seen, however, meaning today's journalism students must remain vigilant to the changing tides of time and ethics and they enter their craft.