Code Yellow

Jesse Beard                                                                                                           jb071416@ohio.edu


With the rise of the term "fake news," many people may not realize that journalism, and even advertising, has a lot of ethical standards. While these standards may vary by organization, their principles remain very similar. That is because the expectations of these organizations are pretty much the same at their base level, only differing due to their specific focuses.

The similarities are clear when comparing the ethical codes of prominent organizations such as, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), and, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). They all mention a commitment to honesty/accuracy, accountability/transparency, and, maintaining independence. These principles are the ethical building blocks for essentially any mass media communication. You cannot build credibility in media without maintaining these basic rules. Although, that will not stop some from trying.

Our media seems to be becoming increasingly Miltonian as the rise in technology allows for a much lower barrier to entry for the world of mass-media. Based on the viewpoint of John Milton, it is the job of the viewer to decide what is valid in a sea of information. Journalists cannot control the work of other journalists outside their organization, they can only show how their own work is credible. In an age where almost anybody can publish information, it is becoming increasingly important to distance ethical journalism from this so-called "fake news" that is infecting social media. The drawback of a Miltonian system being that the access to communication can be manipulated, often by the speaker of falsehoods, which seems to be reminiscent of the current climate facing journalists in the U.S. and much of the rest of the world.

Richard Fenton Outcault's character the "yellow kid," 1906
AP. Retrieved from Encyclopedia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com

Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened in our country. Fortunately, it gives us some historical context to our current situation. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Yellow Journalism is "the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation." It was sparked in 1985 by the rivalry between the New York World, owned by Joseph Pulitzer, and the Journal, founded by William Randolph Hearst. Yellow journalism was, in essence, a competition in sensationalism in which the only loser was the American public. While this period was relatively short and motivated the creation of ethics codes in journalism, it also left traces of the movement to continue, including, "banner headlines, colored comics, and copious illustration;" These additions may seem pretty mild in comparison with the challenges facing ethical journalism today. That is because with each new medium developed, there were also a hundred new ways to sensationalize on those platforms.

We now find ourselves in a new period of yellow journalism, one with a lot more tools of sensationalism than ever. This is why it is of increasing importance to convey those principles of ethical journalism, as they did in response to yellow journalism the first time. The longer our media is consumed by this noise, the more these practices will be considered acceptable.