Who determines right from wrong?

Lily Biros

lb526018@ohio.edu

Everyone has heard "fake news" circulate through pop-culture, Twitter, politics and everyday conversation, but where does all this distrust come from? It seems like these mainstream feelings are fairly new, but in reality, people have always critiqued the media. In today's day and age, trust in the media has been at in all-time-low due to money, public image, tabloid journalism and political bias. Anyone can look up "fake news" in a search engine and thousands of hits pop up with biased information. Social media is swarming with unresearched click-bait, and it's often hard to distinguish what's real or not. It doesn't help that many people base their opinions from others without doing their own research. 

Picture source: Trump's "fake news" tweets 

Oddly enough, what if everyone believes that what they are producing and writing is ethical? Would it be so off the mark to assume that people who write "fake news" actually believe that their work is beneficial to society? 

The problem with public opinion is that everyone judges journalists differently. People view journalists as too right-leaning, liberal, biased, shady and fraudulent based on their own moral codes. But how can journalists be too much of anything if the definition for right and wrong can vary?

This can be a tricky subject because there are so many codes and ethics, spanning from religion, public figures, philosophy and "gut feelings." Luckily for journalists, there is an established code that is used to produce ethical content for the public written by the SPJ. Their code consists of elements from religious texts and famous scholars by maintaining journalistic integrity. Their four main goals; seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent, all lay down the rules for how journalists should act and behave. Anyone who claims to write and does not abide by these rules shouldn't label themselves a journalist. Because of this, journalists have received a bad reputation from people who aren't even in the field. 

The importance of following these codes is imperative due to the fragility of society due to social media. People can believe anything and treat them like facts, while TMZ produces untrustworthy articles like this. 

The only thing that modern journalists can do to combat public onionin and slander is to continue with ethical writing. Gaining the trust from the public isn't won by writing what you think is correct, but in producing what is morally just. Journalists must remove their personal bias in order to serve the public.