Are Your Ethics Ethical?

Sydney Meckler-sm003614@ohio.edu

Let's Get Ethical

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Ethics are a complicated subject, especially today with so many new forms of communication available to reach possible readers or consumers even on the go. Reporters, advertisers, and public relations professionals each have a duty to themselves as well as the company they’re representing. 

They must ensure that the content they’re putting out will be well received by their readers. How they present themselves both while writing their content as well as how they obtain the information they are presenting to their reader base.


Through publications like PRSA and AAF having codes of ethics, they create a baseline standard for reporters to adhere to. However, through some digging and research one may start to question how ethical these standards really are.


Each publication had similar pillars on which their ethics codes were built upon: truth, independence/transparency, diversity, & public interest. These serve as a crucial stepping stone in maintaining ethics within a company, publication, or government entity when publishing information to possible readers.


Through having, maintaining pursuing ethical codes, publications have a stepping stone to hold themselves accountable. Publication in general is a great power, and nowadays anyone has the ability to state information, no matter how they got it, whether or not it’s true or biased.

Some Background Information 

According to Statista, trust in journalism versus trust is up 8% from platforms. This stat is from 2018 and is quite considerable if you consider the political climate and rise of “fake news."


As a whole, however, journalists as a whole rank 10th in America’s most trusted professions. They are tied with bankers at 25%.


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To me it seems as if these publications hold their ethics in different standards though they are based upon the same core principles. A publication wants to create a steady flow of readers in order to keep in business. While many publications have ethical codes, some do not have a means of enforcement nor punishment if ethical standards are broken.

What Do we Do? 

Some publications may claim to value truth but fail to seek out full information of a story before publishing. Some may value transparency, yet not provide disclaimers of how they received the information. Diversity may be a part of their code, yet they may not employ a diverse team to provide a variety of perspectives. Or perhaps the claim to value the public interest when in fact they demonstrate the opposite effect.


In the end, an information consumer must always keep in mind that the responsibility of verifying information in this day and age is on themselves. With new, mobile technology, we as public citizens have an enormous amount of power. It’s time to look past social media as a news source and make a commitment to ensure the truth is told and ethics are upheld during the reporting process.


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