Journalism & Ethics

Jamie Janda 

jj643119@ohio.edu

 

 

With the lack of laws and regulations involved in the world of journalism, it is more than crucial for journalists to hold themselves to a high level of self-credibility and honor when reporting on the various topics they focus on in their works. When working in a newsroom, an important concept that needs to come into play and always be kept in mind is the level of comfort each journalist feels in expressing their own conscience when working on stories. Journalists need to be able to speak up when they feel someone else’s work may be bias or false for the purpose of keeping the news objective and honest.

Picture source: iMediaEthics

One of the biggest known cases of dishonestly and unethical behavior in journalism was the former New York Times reporter, Jayson Blair. Blair began writing front-page stories in Washington that were full of interesting and deeply involved issues that began to make other journalists skeptical of him. After several investigations by many other journalists, it was found that Blair was guilty of plagiarism, fake news, and reporting eye-witness details which he never actually witnessed. He ended up resigning and this is one of the prime examples as to how self-credibility and ethics play a huge role in the world of journalism. Since then, Blair has been open when speaking about his wrong doings and even open to discussing why he did what he did.

Newsroom must establish a culture of respect and honesty where journalists feel empowered to speak up and critique their coworker’s work when something is not right. Diversity must also play a role in journalism ethics. Not only should stories be diversified and be inclusive to all different people, but journalists themselves need to be a wide variety of people with different ideas and mindsets to bring to the table rather than ten of the same type of people working together on a story. Most recently, a journalist named Nikole Hannah-Jones was granted tenure by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for several reasons, including a commitment to diversity of all types.