Why is it important to be an Ethical Journalist?

 

Maddy Doyle 

madisonkdoyle@gmail.com

One huge part of living in the 21st Century is the constant stream of media. Whether it is something you like or hate, we are always consuming new information. Even if you don't think that you are consuming information, you are. You do not have to be actively watching the news or reading the paper to be consuming news. News outlets are moving to social media outlets to put their content out to the world. With the constant stream of news, how do we know what is actually the truth? Then it is up to the journalist or the news outlet to have strong enough ethics to put out truthful information. The media carries such a heavyweight to deliver information. It is more important than ever that the information is correct. People are questioning more than ever, whether the information is accurate?

According to Pew Research Center, data was collected on how people view the media. Americans are divided on the outlets they trust or do not trust. Pew chose a variety of outlets, 30 different ones to be exact. There was distrust from at least one person for each of the outlets. There has recently been an increase in the distrust in outlets. People were split into groups based on their political affiliation. For Republicans, the biggest increase in distrust has been with The New York Times and The Washington Post. For Democrats, there has been less of an increase in the distrust. People are going to not trust different sources even if they say one thing they don't agree with. This research was done to see people's feelings on the media. This data is a little bit skewed due to the fact that the people were broken up into groups based on their political beliefs. 

 

  Picture source: https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/ona-project-provides-helpful-detailed-ethics-advice/

 

 

 

 

 

There are different reasons for people to believe the content they are consuming. From another source, The American Press Institue dove into the reasons people trust or do not trust the media. The main reason for people to trust news sources is because of the accuracy that they have. The public is also likely to trust a source if they have developing and critical information on the story. Without people having trust in a source there is no way that they have a "relationship" with it. If people trust a source they will keep going back for more information and their daily content.

Other aspects that go into how much trust a person has are the person's age and race. Younger people are more likely to trust a source if their digital content is strong. While older adults may not be as concerned with the digital presence of a source. If they do not have digital content it wouldn't be a reason for them to not trust the source. African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to care about the race of the person reporting the news. It is quite important for them to see people from their own community reporting. 

The public simply wants news that they can rely on. There are so many other factors that go into whether or not people trust the media. It is necessary that we stop making people question the news and the information that they are taking in. Through research like the kind above we can find how to restore faith in the media to people. If people everywhere are receiving the same information, people will begin to feel better about the news.