Are Ethics in Journalism Still Followed?

Luke Steiner
ls290516@ohio.edu

Today, technology has a part in every single person's life. With all of this new technology, anybody can find out about information instantaneously. With all of that technology at your fingertips, people believe that they can break the news just like a journalist, even without the proper training. Without training, these people do not understand the ethics behind journalism. But in today's age, do journalists still follow a code of ethics?

Technology has changed the way that journalists do their job. But there is always going to be a code that journalists follow, no matter how accessible information is to every on the planet. The journalistic code that everyone follows is something that will forever be changing as well, based on whoever you may be working for at the time. Different media outlets have different codes with what they believe should be published or ran to be shown to the public so that they can make informed decisions about their lives. No matter who you work for, or what you believe, there are certain things that every journalist follows.

The Society of Professional Journalist's Code of Ethics
Source: spj.org, the Society of Professional Journalists

All outlets have different codes of ethics, but that does not mean they are still followed. After looking at SPJ's Code of Ethics and other outlet's codes of ethics, I found that they all revolve around one thing: truth. Truth is the most important thing for a journalist. They have to tell the public what is going on for them to make informed decisions in their daily lives. Every story that is written always has the hope of telling the truth. It does not always work that way. Truth is not always found in stories. Therefore, the code is being broken, but the stories are published anyway.

The more that I think about today's journalism, I feel that these codes are written so that the media can say they have ethics, even though they are not being followed. The media gives the people what they want because that makes money, even if it may break the code of ethics. Reading these codes made me think that some media outlets do not follow them at all.

The code I see broken the most is journalists not being transparent, or clearly picking one side. This happens most in political news. Media outlets are seen by the public supporting just one side of the spectrum, instead of informing the public about both sides. This was especially prominent during the 2016 Presidential Election. Fox News was notorious for talking about the republicans and Donald Trump. The public thought that all they showed was republican propaganda. Even though Fox News may believe that they are being transparent, what matters is what the public thinks.

The goal of journalism will always be, to tell the truth for the public to make their own informed decisions, but it does not always turn out that way. I feel that the journalistic code of ethics will always be talked about because it is the basis of what good journalism is. The hope is always going to be to follow the rules but, it is almost impossible to always follow the rules because the public needs to know certain information. Remember, the whole point of journalism is to inform the public, therefore, the public gets what the public wants.