Ethics in Journalism: Why we Need to Trust our Public Reporters

Bridget Ward  

bw085717@ohio.edu 

 

Journalists and publishers have always been, and will continue to be criticized for reporting "fake news" or untrustworthy stories to the community. Anything written by a journalist and produced by news publishers is bound to be called out for bias, regardless of whether the article/news piece includes opinionated information or not. It seems almost as if the people reading the news are looking for flaws or unwanted opinion in the news story to dissuade the journalists and disprove the story. There is a growing trust issue within the media that is likely due to the reliance on technology, which is changing the way people view and accept news.

Journalism is centered around three core aspects: truth, independence and minimizing harm. Journalists are expected to report the full, unbiased truth to the consumers and in the least harmful way possible. When seeking truth, a journalist must be as vigorous as possible in the pursuit of accuracy. When collecting information, journalists must act independently and guard their work. They must recognize that ethical news reporting requires individuals to act responsibly and respectfully. They also must minimize harm by being compassionate to those they are reporting to. 

While these values are key to ethical news reporting, they have been slightly updated so that journalism is still relevant in the social media age. Although independence and minimizing harm are both important factors to account for when reporting, it is also important to be transparent and to account for the entire community. Reporting to a certain or specific community requires journalists to study the people that are absorbing the news and consider their values. These newly presented core journalism values were mainly made to guard the public's trust on journalism and reporting. Many people are starting to distrust the news and the way reporting is done because of technology and how stories can be twisted to please the audience. 

A source from the Columbia Journalism Review states that about 45 percent of people do not trust the media because of inaccuracy, bias, "fake news" and "alternative facts." They state that a general lack of credibility is because a lot of communities think that journalists are reporting based on opinions or emotions. Audiences are the ones craving fast news updates and when they distrust all sources, they target the individual reporter and the company.  There is no way to force a community to trust journalists and what they are reporting, but journalists can take steps to ensure the communities' trust by building relationships with people and being as honest as possible. It is also important to include the community to make them feel seen, so asking for feedback is also key for journalists. 

Picture source: Gallup

A large percent of people today seem more reliant on social media as their news source than any other source. While this has been the case for a few years now because of the ever-growing world of apps. Twitter or Instagram, for example, have been an especially prominent news source for many people alike this year. With social media advancing and ruling this era, everyone is constantly posting online. Whether the posts are personal or political matters, everyone has an online profile. 

Most news stories seem to hit a social media outlet before the actual news story is published because of how fast these apps allow people to post and repost about an occurring or recently occurred event. In order to stay in the know about everything, publishers must have a media profile and stay updated with these apps, which is a taxing request because of how vulgar people are online. Many people on social media will read something posted by a publisher that works for a news company and either disagree with it and believe it shows bias, or they will compare it to other published versions of the story. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has been stuck inside with nothing to do but spend time online. App usage has spiked tremendously over these past few months, yet public trust in social media is declining. While people are still running to these sites for COVID-19 health and safety updates, almost 75 percent of Americans do not believe the pandemic information they read on social sites, according to the Extreme Reach Blog. Either way, these are still the first sites that people are using to stay updated about the news and the world. 

With social media booming and COVID-19 forcing people to discover more about how the online world works, public trust in the way news is reported is declining. Journalists need to focus on reporting news with little opinion and they need to account for their communities as a whole.