Being Ethical and Transparent

Katherine Vermes
kv266915@ohio.edu

For journalists, having a Code of Ethics as a guide in the decision-making process of what to publish in a story is an extremely useful tool. It is also helpful that so many of these codes from the most prominent news organizations have principles in common that they feel should be emphasized in reporting to make sure credibility and trust is maintained with the public.

Ethical decision-making should be made in the interest of the public, and so the principles to follow have to be balanced against each other in order to accomplish what is best for an audience.

One common theme in these principles is to make sure published content is truthful and accurate, which is present in the Code of Ethics for the Radio Television Digital News Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Public Relations Society of America and the National Press Photographers Association. All of these organizations emphasize that information must be shared in a way that does not misrepresent the subject matter. The Code of Ethics for RTDNA even states that "facts should get in the way of a good story," meaning no matter how viral a story might go, if the facts do not confirm it then the story cannot be written as such, even if the content becomes significantly less interesting.

Other principles that are present in many Codes of Ethics are that reporters should be accountable and responsible for the content they publish, including mistakes that may slip through fact-checks, and to avoid conflicts of interest. The last common principle is one that has become more important to ensure the public's trust in the media, which is to be open and transparent in reporting.

Courtesy of Pew Research Center

Explaining the Thought Process

According to the guiding principles for the Society of Professional Journalists, media organizations should make an effort to explain their decisions in order to show the public how ethical choices are made and why a story was published as it was. I think this is very important in newsrooms today because many in the media can easily be accused of being biased, especially when writing about politics. If organizations show the public how they determined what to publish, and why the information may seem more one-sided, I think more people would understand and be willing to consider the information presented to them. The more transparent reporters are, the less biased they may seem to the public.

The Society of Professional Journalists practices this very principle by sharing why it does not enforce its Code of Ethics on its members. In this example of transparency, SPJ explained that because its principles must be balanced against one another, and the balance differs depending on the situation, it would be very difficult for their code to be enforced.

But lack of enforcement can lead to practices in the industry that may hurt an organization's transparency, such as the use of anonymous sources.

Avoiding Anonymity

The business of journalism revolves around the gathering of information from various sources, and then sharing the information learned with the public so people can form their own opinions and live better lives based on it. However, for the audience to believe the facts being presented, most want to know that who said them is a credible source of information on the topic. This becomes difficult when sources are not identified.

There are times when promising anonymity cannot be helped, especially in stories that are highly important to inform the public about. But the decision to refer to a source as "unknown" should be rare and a highly difficult choice to make.

According to NPR's Ethics Handbook, "unidentified sources should rarely be heard at all and should never be heard attacking or praising others." In addition to this, NPR reporters must also not use a false name to hide someone's identity and cannot offer anonymity when initially seeking an interview with an individual.

The avoidance of anonymous sources is highly important for journalists today, as the public requires the most transparency as possible to decide whether to trust information. But when unidentified sources are necessary, media organizations should be open and honest with their audience about how that decision was made and why the story is still credible.