The Problem of Ethical Accountability

Ryan Harroff
rh127214@ohio.edu

Public opinion regarding the news media has fallen to an all-time low. Many people laugh when they hear the term, "media ethics," and call it an oxymoron. This is partly because of objectively misleading sources such as Breitbart News poisoning the well of trust. More than that, however, the problem that the news media faces is a divide on how to interpret what is ethical for journalists and what is not.

Every journalist has a personal code of ethics, whether that is one that they have made for themselves or one that they have adopted from organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists, the Public Relations Society of America, or others like them. These ethical codes are good guidelines, but they are not hard and fast rules that can be followed easily.

As the Society of Professional Journalists points out on their website, ethical codes are not easily enforced. There is no perfect interpretation of what is or is not the most ethical decision when faced with a journalistic conundrum. In some cases, trying to do the least harm can be seen as doing greater harm.

Recently, the CNN news network was the subject of intense scrutiny after President Trump posted a gif of himself attacking a professional wrestler on television. The wrestler in the gif had the CNN logo edited over his face. CNN tracked down the man who made the original gif, a user on the popular content-sharing platform Reddit.com, who then apologized and deleted his profile on the website. CNN posted an article about this situation, but clarified that the user's name would not be released since he had apologized and was no longer causing harm.

Gif courtesy of media.giphy.com

Many critics of CNN interpreted this as the news network holding the user's name hostage. The assumption was that CNN would release this person's name to the public if he did not continue to show remorse for creating the gif. Others would argue that CNN was minimizing harm by not releasing his name, since the user would surely be the subject of hate and possibly personal harm were his name made public.

This is the sort of issue that highlights the imbalances that occur in media ethics. To release the man's name would be within CNN's rights, as they are bound to report the truth, but in their judgement it was more ethical to hold his name back while instead reporting the events that took place.

Another news outlet would surely have handled the situation differently. Some may have released the man's name, some may have not bothered to track him down in the first place. Each group or individual reporter would be working based on their own ethical code, and because each code is different and has its own grey areas, it is generally hard for the public to decide whether the act committed is justified. This is especially true when dealing with issues deeply rooted in the institution of journalism, since elements of those issues may not be fully understood by those outside of the industry.

There may not be a quick fix for this issue, but it would be helpful in the long term if journalists and news organizations made their codes of ethics public, and explained why they do what they do in the context of that code. This would at least provide the public with a better understanding of why decisions are made and actions are taken, even if they disagree with them.