The most interesting piece from this past week was entitled, “Marketers must make the ethics of content creation a top priority.” What was so fascinating about this piece as its assertion that the government can not and should not be able to define ethics for journalists.
I think that this belief is spot-on.
One of the key values that this Ethics class has discussed is independence. Independence is the value that separates the ethical journalist or PR professional from a propaganda-producing-hack. The independent PR professional or ethical journalist makes decisions that tell the truth, not simply paint a picture of whatever an audience wants to see.
This idea of pursuing truth is clearly at odds to the government, to whom truth is nothing more than a word.
History has proven time and time again that governments should not be in charge of deciding what is ethical or unethical for journalists. There’s a sacred relationship between the watchdog journalist and the shady, untransparent journalist that must be maintained. If the government is determining what a reporter or writer can or can not say, then how will our profession ever recover from the low level of trust it currently has?
The answer is that it wouldn't. There would be an endless amount of outrage about the government abridging an American's right to the first amendment.
I think that this is actually especially true in terms of marketing and branded content. For news articles, there will always be a balance of telling stories that are truthful but keep the peace. However, in content marketing, the involvement of the government in the ethics process could be disastrous.
For instance, one must consider the relationship between elite, wealthy corporations and Washington politicians. It’s no secret that billionaires and corporations have bought off politicians to an anti-democratic extent. This dark money has impeded a countless list of progressive policy and reforms because, when money talks, the government listens.
As such, there stands a present and real danger that if the government becomes involved in creating/maintaining ethics guidelines, then they will pass policies that either censor journalists for their own gain or give corporations more power to create unethical stories for their financial benefit. That cannot be allowed to happen and would only harm the relationship between newswatcher and journalist further.
It’s because of the government’s greed that I believe in the article’s assertion that the government is not capable of setting guidelines for journalists. While its admirable that the FTC weighed into the conversation, journalistic associations should be in charge of deciding their own guidelines, especially when its comes to branded content.
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