The Ethical Journalist. Gene Foreman
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coverage is a blending of entertainment and information to yield “infotainment.” Infotainment has ethical implications for journalism, whose primary purpose is to give citizens the information they need to be free and self‐governing.23 If lighter fare gets more of the news media’s resources, important civic topics get less.
Journalists’ ethics: As a journalism ethicist for the Poynter Institute, Kelly McBride is used to being gibed by nonjournalists who view her job description as a contradiction in terms. On an airliner, when a row neighbor finds out what she does for a living, the response is often: “Isn’t that an oxymoron?”24 In contrast to the surveys that show little public respect for journalists’ ethics, a study of moral development by two professors showed that journalists are skilled at working through the ethical dimensions of problems in their profession. The professors, Lee Wilkins of the University of Missouri and Renita Coleman of Louisiana State University, reported that their study of 249 journalists placed them fourth among 20 groups that had taken the Defined Issues Test, designed to assess moral development.25
Advertisers’ influence: As mentioned above, the dual nature of news websites, broadcast stations, and newspapers creates an unavoidable appearance of a conflict of interest. The media perform a quasi‐civic function of providing information to the public, but they cannot survive in the marketplace if they can’t pay their bills. So they sell advertisements to businesses that want their messages to reach the news organization’s audience. Even though advertising is declining (and digital subscriptions are increasing) as a source of revenue for news organizations, its mere presence makes it easy for a skeptical consumer to assume that the news organization will slant the news to cater to the wishes of an advertiser. This has happened, but journalists are zealous about guarding against such occurrences or blowing the whistle on them if they do occur. Time and again, news organizations have rebuffed advertisers’ pressure at great financial sacrifice.
Applying Perspective
It is well to conclude this chapter by trying to put the public criticism in perspective. Despite the complaints, people do say good things about the news media in the surveys. They are more likely to praise the news source they depend on – the newspaper that brings them local news, or the cable channel that connects them to the larger world. Their negative assessment of “the media” may be based on what they’ve heard, not their personal experience.
For that matter, “the media” is a nebulous, inaccurate term that contributes to public misunderstanding about journalism. The New York Times and the New York Post have little in common. Partisan blogs differ from the websites of the mainstream newspapers and broadcast networks. Fox News and MSNBC are polar opposites.
Although it is true that credibility has fallen sharply since the 1980s, you should bear in mind that complaints about journalists are nothing new.
Consider these complaints: “News is distorted. Some newspapers invade privacy. Scandal and ‘sex’ stories are printed solely to sell papers. Innocent persons are made to suffer needlessly by publicity. The real interest of the press is money‐grubbing.”
Those appeared in Leon Nelson Flynt’s book, The Conscience of the Newspaper.
It came out in 1925.26
Notes
1 1 Mike Jacobs, editor of the Grand Forks Herald, in remarks made publicly at the 2003 convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
2 2 Jay Black, Bob Steele, and Ralph Barney, Doing Ethics in Journalism: A Handbook with Case Studies, 3rd edn. (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999), 245–246.
3 3 “Angel appears in GF, EGF; Angel’s wings registered to Kroc,” Grand Forks Herald, May 19, 1997.
4 4 “Flood of complaints follows newspaper’s disclosure of donor” and “On the radio waves,” Grand Forks Herald, May 20, 1997.
5 5 Black, Steele, and Barney, Doing Ethics in Journalism, 246.
6 6 “The Herald’s first commandment: never hold the news,” Grand Forks Herald, May 20, 1997.
7 7 Jacobs, remarks at the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention, 2003.
8 8 Megan Brenan, “Americans’ trust in mass media edges down to 41%,” Gallup, Sept. 26, 2019. Telephone survey of a random sample of 1,525 US adults Sept. 3-15, 2019.
9 9 Ibid.
10 10 Jeffrey Gottfried, Mason Walker, Amy Mitchell, “Americans see skepticism of news media as healthy, say public trust in the institution can improve,” Pew Research Center, Aug. 31, 2020. Online survey of 10,300 US adults Feb. 18-Mar. 2, 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel, an online survey panel recruited through national, random sampling.
11 11 Ibid.
12 12 Gallup-Knight Foundation, “American views 2020: Trust, media, and democracy.” Random-sample mail survey of 20,046 US adults Nov. 8, 2019-Feb. 16, 2020.
13 13 R.J. Reinhart, “Nurses continue to rate highest in honesty, ethics,” Gallup, Jan. 6, 2020. Telephone survey of 1,205 US adults Dec. 2-15, 2019.
14 14 Roy Peter Clark, “The public bias against the press,” Poynter, Jan. 28, 2008.
15 15 Black, Steele, and Barney, Doing Ethics in Journalism, 17–18.
16 16 William F. Woo, Letters from the Editor: Lessons on Journalism and Life (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007), 24.
17 17 Kathleen Carroll in a telephone interview with Gene Foreman, Nov. 2, 2007.
18 18 James M. Naughton in a telephone interview with Gene Foreman, Sept. 14, 2007.
19 19 Gallup/Knight Foundation, “American views 2020”.
20 20 Robert J. Haiman, Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists (Arlington, VA: Freedom Forum’s Free Press/Fair Press Project, 2000), 2.
21 21 Mark Jurkowitz, “Anna and the astronaut trigger a week of tabloid news,” Pew Research Center, Feb. 12, 2007;“Anna Nicole Smith – anatomy of a feeding frenzy,” Pew Research Center, Apr. 4, 2007. For its weekly content index, Pew analyzed content from 48 news outlets representing five media sectors: newspapers, network television, cable television, websites, and radio.
22 22 Ibid.
23 23 Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, 3rd edn. (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2014), 17.
24 24 McBride’s experience is related in Kristen Hare, “Still slip-sliding: Gallup Poll ranks journalists low on honesty, ethics,” Poynter, Dec. 17, 2013.
25 25 Renita Coleman and Lee Wilkins, The Moral Media: How Journalists Reason about Ethics (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005), 39.
26 26 Leon Nelson Flynt, The Conscience of the Newspaper: A Case Book in the Principles and Problems of Journalism (New York: Appleton, 1925), 7–11.
Point of View
Journalism, Seen From the Other Side
They had already drawn a conclusion and were simply collecting facts to dress it up.
By Jane Shoemaker
The writer, now retired, was a reporter for United Press International; a reporter, foreign correspondent and departmental editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer and managing editor of The Charlotte Observer .
AFTER A QUARTER-CENTURY as a reporter and editor, I became head of communications for a regional brokerage and investment‐banking firm. When I switched to the other side, it was an eye‐opener to see the wide variance in standards and ethics from one reporter to the next.
To my distress, I found that far too many journalists