Ethics is More Than Just a Word

Ryan Burg

Jryanburg00@gmail.com

As a journalist, the goal is to inform the public about news and information happening around them and others. Journalism has been a rock to the public for them to gain and trust information that is being given to them. It's a big responsibility to put out ethically viable information to the public. You want to gain the reader's trust and adhere credibility to your work. 

According to the Moral Reasoning for Journalists, "Critics are saying that journalism has lost its way, that it no longer provides honest information in a form that readers and viewers can use. In the race for numbers -- circulation, ratings, and page views advertising dollars and profit margins -- perhaps journalism has too often skipped the nutritious main course of serious news and gone straight to the dessert of entertainment, which is tasty in the short run, but, in the end, neither satisfying nor sustainable."

Picture source: https://www.shutterstock.com/search/ethics

 

In recent years, readers have lost trust in many writers and news platforms because of the lack of their ethics, which shouldn't be the case. One of the problems is that many news outlets have their own set of ethics and hope their journalists will follow, but there are actual ethical values they should keep instead. 

According to The Five Principals of Ethical Journalism, the most common principals are truth and accuracy, independence, fairness and impartially, humanity, and accountability.

Being a journalist, having truth and accuracy is the heart of journalism. Journalists are faced with this issue every day so they can be reliable and credible to whoever is reading. If they are caught not having these values their career can be tarnished because without accuracy how can their work be trusted.

Being independent is also a very big responsibility for journalists. Journalists are supposed to have their own voice, but it shouldn't be only about their own views. It has to consist the other sides of the story.

When writing a news piece, there are always two sides to the story. Whether it's for your intended audience or not, you should always give both sides of the story. It shows fairness to the opposing side of the issue, so the reader can get an in-depth, impartial account of the story.

Journalism's intent should never be to harm but to inform. Humanity has a huge role in ethical journalism. What is written may be hurtful but it should be understood that what is said can affect the lives of others.

Lastly, a word that is crucial to journalism is accountability. I used it a couple of times in this blog and for good reason.  A journalist should be reliable for the information that he/she/they are providing and accountable for the wrong information that they put out. This is important as a journalist devoid of accountability could stain their career and lose their trust among readers.

Today we need ethical journalism more than anything. To keep in mind that informing the public should be the number one priority for journalists, not clicks. The future of journalism has to regain the trust they have deteriorated from the people and make news more comfortable for readers to believe in.