1. The most difficult challenge faced by journalists is to:
1 – get the facts right
2 – tell the story fairly
ETHICAL BEHAVIOR AND
JOURNALISTS

2. What is ethical behavior?
 Certain professions adopt guidelines for
ethical behaviors that “should” be followed
by members of that profession, including:
 Doctors, lawyers, real estate agents and
journalists
 The Society of Professional Journalists adopted a
Code of Ethics that focuses on four main points:
 Seek the truth and report it
 Minimize harm
 Act independently
 Be accountable

3. The musts…
 Ethics must be both learned and developed.
 You must have a personal sense of ethics and
responsibility – a moral compass
 Each of us must be willing to voice these
differences. This is one of the greatest parts
about working for a free press.

4. It’s your job to be ethical
 Ethical errors are a great sin.
 You could make or break the lives of the
people you cover.
 You could make an ethical error by:
 Gathering info hurriedly, wanting to be the first to
break a story, not thinking through the
ramifications of a story, not questioning a source
hard enough or using sloppy sourcing

5. So, how do you do it?
 Doing ethics is reasoned, principled, and
consistent thinking about how you can
maximize your truth telling obligation while
minimizing harm to vulnerable news sources
and consumers (your readers)
 It’s a branch of philosophy that addresses
questions about morality such as:
 Good and evil
 Right and wrong
 Virtue and vice
 Justice and crime

6. Ethics and morals
 Ethics is your beliefs rather than what is
actually right or wrong
 It’s basically your rights granted by the First
Amendment and various court cases and
rulings, vs. your moral obligation – why and
how you make ethical decisions while on the
job, which brings me to another point.

7. Work ethics
 How businesses or companies think you
should behave
 Be polite
 Professional
 Respectful
 Dress for the job you want, not the job you
have

8. Personal ethics
 You may strongly believe you should act or
behave in a certain way
 Table manners
 How you speak to professors and your
superiors
 How you react to those same people

9. Checkbook journalism
 When an organization pays for an interview
or photograph – is that ethical? It happens a
lot of time on TV

10. More terms
 Libel: defamation by written or printed
words, pictures or any form other than
spoken words or gestures (spoken is slander).
 Statements must be:
 False
 Defamatory
 Published
 With identifiable plaintiffs
 Fault of the defendant – through negligence or
malice

11. How to defend against libel
 Truth
 Consent
 Privilege (freedom to report on newsworthy
statements and public controversies,
including legislative and judicial proceedings)

12. False light
 When you run a story, photo, headline or
even a caption that portrays someone in an
inaccurate way, as something he or she is not
 Example: a news station shows a live shot of a
street corner where prostitutes are said to
frequent. Then, a lady walks by in the shot.
She sued for false light and won.

13. 7 deadly sins of journalism
 Deception – lying or misrepresenting yourself to
obtain information
 Conflict of interest – accepting gifts or favors from
sources or promoting social and political causes
 Bias – slanting a story by manipulating facts to sway
readers’ opinions
 Fabrication – manufacturing quotes or imaginary
sources or writing anything you know to be untrue
 Theft – obtaining information unlawfully or without
a source’s permission
 Burning a source – deceiving or betraying the
confidence of those who provide information for a
story
 Plagiarism – passing off someone else’s words or
ideas as your own

14. Ethics matter
 As journalist’s, you will be torn between the
right of the public to know and some other
moral tenet – perhaps the invasion of an
individual’s privacy, which would militate
against publication.
 Although no one philosophy can always
explain a person's motivation, generally
speaking, a basic knowledge of the following
ethical philosophies will help you learn of
your personal perspectives.

15. 1 Aristotle’s Golden Mean
 Aristotle wanted everyone to be happy
 So, he adopted the Golden Mean principle,
which is living neither to excess nor to
frugality but in moderation somewhere
between the two
 Courage lies between cowardice and
recklessness, or think of this as picking the
mean and avoiding the extremes
 However, there are some problems with this.
Some virtues are absolute, like truth.

16. 2 Immanuel Kant’s
Categorical Imperative
 Act according to the maxim that you would
wish all other rational people to follow, as if
it were a universal law.
 This means you would act by asking yourself
the question, “What if everyone acted this
way?”

17. 3 John Stuart Mill and Unity
 Instead of that being the good which serves
one's own interest and provides for one's own
pleasure, the utilitarian's take that which
produces the greatest amount of pleasure
for the greatest number of people
 This is the principle of UTILITY, which is about
producing the maximum amount of
happiness.

18. 4 John Rawl’s Veil of
Ignorance
 Seeing everyone through a veil, without noticing
age, race, sex, and so on maintains "basic respect
for all humans…”
 What would rational beings decide was best in
situations where not all the humans involved are
equal in physical conditions, social or economic
circumstance?
 Basically, treat all people equally without regard
to their political, economical, social positions
 There are no advantages for any one class of
people when all are reduced to their basic
position in life.

19. The Potter Box
 The four-step model for deciding ethical
dilemmas
 The first step is to define the facts at hand
 Second step is to identify your values (breaking
the story first, being fair, being accurate, etc.)
 Third is to apply the ethical principle and how it
works in journalism
 Four is to find your loyalties – for a journalist,
pursing the truth that the audience needs to
know is a paramount loyalty, but so is your
allegiance to the profession, being fair to sources
and accurate

20. The Potter Box

21. Values myweb.arbor.edu/rwoods/Media_Ethics7/intro.htm.ppt
Professional Moral Values Aesthetic The values are
Proximity Truthtelling Harmonious different
Firstness Humanness Pleasing everywhere. In
Impact/magnitude Justice/fairness Imaginative
Britain, for
Recency Freedom
instance, the
Conflict Independence Logical
Human Interest Stewardship press respects
Consistent
Entertainment Honesty the court when
Competent
Novelty Nonviolence Knowledge-
withholding
Toughness Commitment able names of
Thoroughness Self-control juveniles. In
Immediacy Socio-cultural America, we
Independence Thrift don’t.
No prior restraint Hard work We believe
Public’s right to Energy everyone has a
know Restraint right to know
Watchdog Heterosexuality the truth.

22. Loyalties
1. Duty to ourselves
2. Duty to clients / subscribers / supporters
3. Duty to our organization or firm
4. Duty to professional colleagues
5. Duty to society
 Ethical decision-making must be marked by a sincere
sense of social responsibility and a genuine concern
for the citizenry
 In the Potter Box the loyalty component necessitates
the acknowledgment of the implications of a decision
for institutions and social groups before an ethical
decision is made.

23. Dilemma #1:
 Would you use information for a news story that you got from
messages posted by discussion groups (special interest email
lists) without contacting the people who posted the
message?
 So, your writing a story and check a discussion group that is
open to the public from the women’s center at school. You
find messages posted by three women who claim to have
been sexually molested by a professor.
 You tried unsuccessfully to contact them by email and phone.
 The professor refuses to respond to you by email, by phone
or in person.
 Will you use quotes from the discussion group in your story?
 Will you name the professor?
 The women?
 You are on deadline and this is a competitive story…what do
you do?

24. Dilemma #1:
The definition: Should we run the comments?
The values: accuracy, truth, fairness, privacy
Ethical principle:
Loyalties:

25. Dilemma #1:
Decision: Journalists should test the accuracy of
information from all sources and exercise to
avoid inadvertent error.
Journalists should diligently seek out subjects of
news stories to give them an opportunity to
respond to allegations of wrong doing.

26. Dilemma #2:
 Should we use obscenities in quotes? What do you
do if a source tells you not to quote him after the
interview, but before you go to press?
 We shouldn’t use obscene words unless there is a
reason: if the obscenities are crucial, replace them
with the first letter and an ellipsis: f…
 The decision to withdraw quotes after an interview
is difficult. Hopefully, you made it clear you were
on the record before the interview started.
 Try negotiating with the source, because you do
have the right to use the information because you
identified your purpose clearly.

27. Dilemma #2:
The definition: Should we withdraw the quotes?
The values: Ethical values: decency, fairness, accuracy,
responsibility to readers and sources, credibility
Ethical principle:
Loyalties:

28. Dilemma #2:
Decision: If it’s more important to be fair to the
readers than to be fair to the source, run the
quotes. But then again, if you are jeopardizing
your newspaper’s credibility against the source’s
will, don’t run them. Are the quotes essential to
the story?

29. More dilemmas:
 You belong to a campus club that is hosting a
charity-sponsored event that would make a
good story.
 Should you write it?
 SPJ says journalists should be free of
obligation to any interest other than the
public’s right to know.
 You should avoid conflicts of interest, real or
perceived, and should disclose unavoidable
information.

30. More dilemmas:
 Should you show your story to a source between
publication?
 Journalists are usually opposed to prepublication
review by a source in most newsrooms because of
fears that the source may recant the statements
or may wish to change the copy.
 Check the story with a source, instead, reading
back the technical parts or areas you need
clarification.
 SPJ says journalists should test the accuracy of
information from all sources and exercise care to
avoid inadvertent error? What do you think?

31. More dilemmas:
 Should you accept gifts from a source? Does
the value of the gift make a difference?
 Your interviewing a band and the lead singer
gives you some swag, a free CD, T-shirt and
hat. You do not plan to write a review of the
CD. The total value is about $35. Should you
accept all, some or none of these gifts?
 What are your values?

32. More dilemmas:
 Values would include credibility, conflict of
interest…
 SPJ says journalists should refuse gifts, favors,
fees, free travel and special treatment and
shun secondary employment, political
involvement, public office, and service in
community organizations if they compromise
journalistic integrity.

33. More dilemmas:
 How truthful should you be when faced with
a conflict between protecting your client and
dealing with the media?
 You work for a PR firm and deals with a baby
crib manufacturing company. Two babies
have died when their cribs collapsed. The
CEO is reluctant to issue a recall because it
would cost the company a fortune.

34. More dilemmas:
 The CEO wants you to reassure the media that
the cribs are safe and not a direct result of any
faulty crib parts. He tells you the product
development team warned him a few years ago
that the sides of the crib were not secure, but it
would be too costly to replace them.
 If the media asks, he wants you to deny the
company ever had any indication the cribs might
be defective.
 Will you lie or withhold information? What steps
will you propose to the CEO?

35. More dilemmas:
 Values?
 Truth, credibility, fairness, loyalty to your client
 The Public Relations Society of America says that
a member shall adhere to truth and accuracy and
to generally accepted standards of good taste.
 A member shall safeguard the confidences or
present and former clients.
 A member shall not engage in any practice that
tends to corrupt the integrity of channels of
communication or the processes of government.

36. Undercover dilemma
 Would you go undercover? You received
complaints from black students that
apartment managers are discriminating
against them, saying all the apartments had
just been rented in the white neighborhoods.
 A white and black reporter on staff decide to
go undercover by seeking apartments
separately and then reporting back to see
about different responses. Is deception the
only way to get this story?

37. Undercover dilemma
 Values – truth and public interest, along with
fairness
 Guidelines: SPJ says to avoid undercover or other
surreptitious methods of gathering information
except when traditional open methods will not
yield information vital to the public.

38. One more dilemma
 How much should you reveal about a person in a
profile? What is your responsibility for the
consequence?
 A reporter profiles an illegal Mexican immigrant.
She asks if he understood that his name and picture
would be in the newspaper. He said he understood
and if he got deported, it was his destiny.
 So, the story ran and immigration officials
apprehended him.
 The Hispanic community was outraged. The
newspaper wrote a column defending the story but
said the people should have thought more about
the impact.
 What do you think?

39. One more dilemma
 Would you have included the name and picture?
How much responsibility do you have for the
consequences of a profile if the source gives you
information that could be damaging?
 Guidelines: on one hand, SPJ says, “seek the
truth and report it.”
 On the other, the code of ethics says, “Minimize
harm.”
 Which is the greater good?