Published Articles

Journalism Ethics

By Ellen Hume, Director, Center on Media and Society, UMass Boston

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Some people laugh at the idea that journalists might have “ethics.” What about all those sensational stories, the scandals where reporters make things up, the hypocrisy and lack of honesty that people think they experience every day in the media? What about all those journalists who say they are fair and balanced, and they just seem to spout what the powerful want them to say?

Well that certainly that isn’t the kind of journalism we support at the Center on Media and Society at UMass Boston. We look for those journalists who do their best to be honest, accurate, independent and fair, on behalf of all the people.

This kind of ethical journalist:

• Tries to shine a spotlight on important facts, bringing them to the public’s attention in a comprehensive, proportional and fair way.
• Includes the public’s voices and concerns in the news.
• Does not insult people’s intelligence by focusing only on entertainment and sex scandals.
• Cares about democracy and civic life, and has an important role in informing the public about their government and their choices for influencing politics.

What we call “best practice” ethical journalism is a goal. It can never be perfect, but some journalists do work very hard to live by these ethics.

It is not easy to do this! Not everyone will look at the same situation and see the same news story. One may be just as correct as the other—but from a different perspective. Usually there are several “truths” in a situation, and the reporter may have to capture them in a series of stories rather than all at once, in the first story. The reporter may not have understood the story well enough to cover it properly. We hope that the public will respond by communicating with the news media and telling them what might be more accurate. Out of that dialogue comes deeper and better journalism over time.

To figure out whether you should believe something in the news, see where it came from originally. Look at the source that the reporter is citing. If the news organization doesn’t tell you the source, then don’t give it your full confidence. Sometimes even if the reporter is following all the ethical rules, the source may lie to the reporter, or tell him something for a hidden reason that they don’t disclose. Or the source may simply be wrong about something. That is why good journalists try to tell you their sources, or if they must keep the source unnamed to protect their safety, they get TWO sources for that information to be sure it is accurate.

Because journalists are not licensed in the United States, and anyone can pretend he is a journalist, how can you tell if the journalism you are reading is worth your trust? Look for:

Accuracy.

The first rule of journalism ethics is to strive for accuracy: names are spelled correctly, and events are described as they actually happened, not as the journalist, advertiser or publisher hoped they would be.

Both sides of the story.

There is a balanced and comprehensive view of what is happening or has happened. The journalist should be open-minded and let the news emerge from fact-finding.

News dictates what is news.

The journalist is not working to make someone happy, to win advertisers, flatter her friends or to get revenge. The journalist writes about things that are important, informative or interesting. She is independent of the factions she is covering, and loyal first to the public, not to her commercial or political sponsors. Advertisers and publishers should recognize that independence and honesty are necessary for the credibility of the news organization.

News is labeled honestly.

There's nothing wrong with opinions -- except when they are sneakily placed inside stories presented as “news.” An opinion column or editorial should not be called a news report. Let the facts speak for themselves.