My Ethical Code

My Ethics code.

Throughout this semester I have been presented with ethical problems and theories that I had not know of, or thought of before. As a journalist we are given certain responsibilities by the public and it is our duty to present the news in an objective and truthful way. My personal ethics code is as follows;

• Do not ever, ever lie. There should never be a situation in which journalists should lie, if there is something you cannot print, do not print it. Lying is never ok. 
• Do not plagiarise. 
• Never accept gifts or anything that can be construed as a bribe during work on a story.  
• Never break the law in order to get information for a story. No story is worth going to jail.
• Try and use utilitarianism values when judging the implications of certain stories. Although, even with those values, use your judgement to minimise harm. 
• At all times strive for objectivity in your writing.

Whist these are my ethical values and I hope I would never break them, I feel that stories should be dealt with individually and the ethics balanced depending on that story. 

The Now Show

The Now Show is a popular satirical radio show recorded on Thursdays and broadcast on Fridays on BBC Radio 4. Marcus Brigstocke's topic this week is regarding the lack of news reports on the Leveson Enquiry. You can listen to it here and if you just want to listen to Marcus' piece it starts at 8.30 minutes in.

N.B The Now Show is only available online for another 5 days, unless you download the podcast!

So, was the phone hacking scandal the public's fault?

This article on the Channel 4 news site reports how the papers are shouting 'Witchhunt!' when relating to all the new investigations regarding phone hacking. Yet, it has the feel (to me) that it is partly blaming the British public for the phone hacking, as they seem to want so much scandal in the news.
I'm fully aware that news has changed, leaning towards a more celebrity focused medium. But I am unsure if the public have 'pushed' the papers to do so. If the newspapers cannot report these stories surely the thirst for them would die down...to me it seems like the public have an addiction to all these celebrity stories, but if the press cut off the source of these stories, the need should die down? Right?
But then again, they've been getting away with this for years, and at the end of the day, these stories sell papers...

Anonymous blogs and tweets.

Unfortunately it has become practice for blogger and tweeters alike to use a fake name to protect themselves from legal action. Journalists who become ‘secret’ bloggers do so to protect themselves from being fired, but use the blogger and tweeting world to express personal opinions about their work environment and some use it as a semi-personal platform too. 

Should journalists be allowed to do so? Surely if they feel so strongly about something they’ve made up a false identity to express it, they should just use their real names and stand up for what they believe in? There have been many cases of blogs becoming so popular they are made into books, or TV programs, which for those that were anonymous have ended up being ‘outed’ and some of those bloggers lost their jobs because of it.

One blog I follow (and follow on twitter too) is The Fleet Street Fox, an English journalist who blogs and tweets quite regularly and her book is due to come out shortly. I tend to agree with a lot of what she writes in her blog, and I quite like her anonymity. I just feel it’s also a shame that fellow journalists are going to do their upmost to find out who she really is. Is there no respect between journalists anymore?  

News Corp is at it again.

Is it ever ethical to do falsify your circulation numbers in a bit to deceive your readers?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/12/wall-street-journal-andrew-langhoff

Private and Public Photographs

The news media are not permitted to take and publish photographs that have been taken on Private Property, without permission. But, photographs are constantly being taken on public property and uploaded to social media sites. So why the difference?

For example, within The University Of San Francisco, within college boundaries photographs cannot be taken, yet I myself have taken photographs and uploaded them to Facebook and Twittter. They are still to some extent being ‘published’. In fact Facebook calls it ‘publishing’. So, should photographs taken on camera phones or personal cameras be subject to the same laws as professional photographers? 

Daily Mail Fail.

Earlier today, Amanda Knox and her ex boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito had their previous convictions of the murder of Meredith Kercher overturned. They have been given an immediate release from prison. 

            The media worldwide have been following this case from the first reports of the murder. Today the world’s media waited with baited breath, as the charges were overturned. Typically with most stories like this a lot of news agencies have pre-written stories for both eventualities. This is not a new idea, what is a new idea is posting the wrong story online, which is full of complete falsities. 

            The Daily Mail, a newspaper in England is widely regarded as strongly Right wing, published THIS online seconds after the verdict was read out. This article is full of complete lies, including photographs with false captions underneath. 

Is this type of journalism ever defendable?