How to remain ethical today?

 Joe Collins

joec3754@gmail.com

             

Ever since the Pentagon Paper were released in the early 1970s, journalists have been very concerned with their ethics and making sure that everything that they publish is extensively researched, has correct sources and is free of any opinion. There is no bigger time for this practice than today. Ever since the "fake news" term started getting more and more common, a phrase President Donald Trump has given more traction since he used the phrase a lot throughout his presidential campaign and his time in office. Ethics are the common values that guide reporters. Every journalist wants to remain as ethical as possible because remaining ethical really dictates whether you will keep a position inside of the media and not lose all credibility you spent the majority of your adulthood building. So what are ways to remain ethical and what should you avoid? Allow me to inform you.

   

       Photo credits: Society of Professional Journalists

The Society of Professional Journalists gives us 5 reasons why we need ethics in journalism and I'll explain each one in detail. First, information. The news is one of the most important aspects of a functioning society. After all, freedom of the press is in the First Amendment of the Constitution. So the need to inform society is the utmost importance for journalists and to do it in the proper order and presenting the absolute truth is our top priority as journalists. 

   

Second, there is accountability. We need to keep those we write about in check. For example, when we write about the POTUS, we want to report on what he's doing and making sure that in no way he is abusing his power. The tricky thing about that is, that when we write something false or fabricated, it is immediately turned against us and now we are the ones being held accountable for our mistakes.

   

Third, empowerment. To explain this I'll give you an example. When the video of George Floyd being arrested in late May was circulated and it showed the officer kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, various news centers later reported that he was killed during that time. That video being posted, gave power to the people to come together and protest for Black lives and against police brutality and for the first time ever, there was a protest in all 50 states across this nation. All because of one video being posted.

   

Next, there is comfort. An example of this would be when Kobe Bryant, Gigi Bryant and 7 others were killed in a helicopter crash in January of this year. While it may have not been the best reporting, looking at TMZ, numerous people across the worlds were scavenging through their news sources trying to find what happened, or who was onboard? Was the pilot drunk? How many people died? The news was able to give that information, while simultaneously trying to provide comfort to those devastated by the news. 

   

Finally, democracy. This one is a little trickier because there are many news sources that are biased one-way so it's kind of hard to find. news source if you are an unbiased voter. Fox is for conservatives, CNN is for liberals. Either way, having these stations is a good thing because you know you have a source of information that can help you learn more about the candidates and find out if you agree with what their stances on certain issues are. 

  

Now we come to the other side of the issue, things to avoid to remain ethical. There are numerous ways a reporter can be unethical, but I'm here to talk about some of the major examples. One of the biggest unethical things we can do as journalists is to not print the truth. If we lie or fabricate about a topic, then we immediately lose all credibility and really are ill-informed. We as journalists spend years and years and years building up our credibility, practicing citing sources, interviewing people so that we'd never come to a situation where we'd print something that is incorrect. So when it happens, that journalist probably won't write a story again. 

   

Another is using an incorrect photo. This one bugs a lot of people because it can throw off the reader, especially if it is at the beginning of the story. For example, if you read a sports article and the picture is of LeBron James, but the article is actually about Kawhi Leonard, it throws off the entire story and the credibility is lost because it might imply that the writer doesn't know who Leonard is and ruins the story. 

   

 

 

Now we come to the most well-known unethical topic: Being Biased. As journalists, we are expected to be unbiased in our writing. The only times you see biased journalism is either in editorials or if they're a columnist, which is a little different than a journalist. Tucker Carlson is a columnist for example. In anything other than those topics that I've mentioned, we have to be unbiased in our reporting, otherwise we're just a deluxe version of someone on Twitter.