Week 9: Ethical journalism

The journalism industry thrives at the expense of others. Journalists report everything and anything which are valuable or newsworthy and by that, it means satisfying readers' needs and desires. As human, we tend to get attracted to news reports or articles that report on others' misery. Death, robbery, murder, etc. The irony of having codes of ethics in journalism when in the first place, it is everything but ethical.

However, putting that sort of thoughts about ethics and journalism aside, there are also other meanings to the term 'ethical journalism', not in the sense of ethical =/= journalism. Ethical journalism also refers to the way a journalist reports on events. Every different reporters have different styles and concepts in news reporting because the end result of a report depends on one's moral values and responsibilities. A good journalist would probably report an event based on accuracy and fairness.

And because journalism has evolved over time and is now a competitive industry, most journalists start to struggle to be the best and are therefore, under a lot of pressure. Time is definitely not a journalist's bestfriend because they have to rush to meet the deadlines. As if things can't get any tougher, they also have to ensure that their news contents meed the demands of their readers. This might result in plagiarism which is a conflicting factor in the journalism code of ethics.

In my opinion, ethical journalism is a myth just like media objectivity as mentioned in the previous entry. Media is run by people who have feelings and judgments which lead to biases. So I think journalists subconsciously act under the idea of ethics, not acting with ethics.