This continues my analysis of a draft of a revision to Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. I commented Friday on the changes to the “Seek Truth” section of the code. Here I’ll address the next three sections: Minimize Harm, Act Independently and Be Accountable.
I remain disappointed in the revisions and hopeful that SPJ members will insist on a more thorough update. My primary criticisms from Friday’s post still stand: The Ethics Committee went into this process with most members having already decided that the current Code of Ethics, adopted in 1996, just needed a little tweaking. I argued in 2010 and on various occasions since that the code needs an overhaul. I don’t know if we’re in a majority of journalists, but lots of people have told me privately that they agree (a poll on that 2010 post showed a vote of 138-22 in favor of updating, but I’m under no illusion that my blog readers are a cross-section of journalists.
The committee’s draft just tweaked and didn’t sufficiently address the needs of journalists today or the recommendations of a digital “subcommittee” on which I served (only one member of the subcommittee was an actual member of the Ethics Committee).
However, I’ll amend and apologize for one thing I said in Friday’s post. Fred Brown, vice chair of the Ethics Committee, contended in a comment on my previous post that the revision is “full of references to the principles of ‘transparency.'” I disagree. Transparency should get notably more attention in this update, even if it doesn’t rise to the level of a core principle. But transparency does fare better in the sections I’m reviewing today.
I overstated in a comment about transparency in Friday’s post and I have revised that post. (I won’t repeat the comment here, though you can see it marked through in the previous post.) Flippancy doesn’t help here, and I apologize for being flippant.
As in the earlier post, I am taking the current code section by section in this way:
- The current SPJ code.
- My 2010 recommendations, if any.
- The recommendations, if any, of the digital subcommittee.
- The current draft.
- I will identify what, if anything, has changed.
- My comments, if any.
Minimize Harm
Current code:
Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.
My 2010 comment: I made no comments until the eighth point in this section.
Digital subcommittee recommendation: We would add members of the public to this list, in a way that acknowledges their ability to create and share information.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect.
Change: “Members of the public” added.
Comment: Since I’ve noted where the Ethics Committee blew off the subcommittee I should note that the committee added the public in an apparent response to the committee. But it didn’t acknowledge the public’s ability to create and share information.
Compassion and sensitivity
Current code:
Journalists should:
Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
Digital subcommittee recommendation:
- Many stories inspire people to act. Journalists should inform people not just of the story, but, when relevant and appropriate and good for the human outcomes, of the ways they might get involved.
- Also, it is important that journalists make themselves continually available to sources by letting them know how they can be contacted, and where they can engage with the story in the spaces it lives.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Be sensitive when seeking or using information, interviews and images of people affected by tragedy or grief. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
Change: This has become the second point under “Minimize Harm,” rather than the first two points. The second sentence of the first paragraph remains identical. The second paragraph, with a bit of a rewrite, became the first sentence of the first paragraph.
Comment: Digital subcommittee recommendations ignored. Odd that “compassion” has been removed from the section on minimizing harm. I’d appreciate explanation from someone on the committee: Was this inadvertent? Did compassion conflict with someone’s notions of objectivity? I think I prefer encouraging journalists to show compassion.
Arrogance
Current code:
Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
Digital subcommittee recommendation:
Instead of “arrogance,” we believe the right caution here is against “irreverence.” (The recommendation started with an explanation, but stopped in mid-sentence, unless someone caught that in editing before sharing our recommendations with the full committee.)
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance, irreverence or an invasive behavior.
Change: Added “irreverence or an invasive behavior.” Also moved to the first point under “Minimize Harm.”
Comment: An improvement and a response to the subcommittee’s recommendations.
Privacy
Current code:
Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy.
Digital subcommittee recommendation:
The line between public and private people has become blurred as many private people share more aspects of their lives publicly. We need to articulate a position that can clarify best practices in this world. Sometimes the news value from the private lives of citizens is important, but we don’t believe citizens’ content always deserves to be treated with the blanket publicity of a celebrity’s, just because it may be publicly available.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Recognize the harm in using photos or information, including any photos and data from social media forums, for which the source is unknown, or where there is uncertainty regarding the authenticity of the images or information.
Recognize that legal access to information differs from ethical justification to publish. Journalists should balance the importance of information and potential effects on subjects and the public before publication.
Realize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public figures and others who seek power, influence or attention.
Change: The first two paragraphs are entirely new, responding to suggestions from the digital subcommittee.
Comment: The first paragraph seems to me to belong more in the truthfulness section. It’s dealing with verification issues, when the type of content described may or may not be harmful to the subjects of the photos or information. It’s also interest that the draft, which committee vice chair Fred Brown said in a comment on my first post “tried to avoid any mention of specific technologies,” makes its only mention of social media in the context of “harm.” That’s pretty revealing.
Taste
Current code:
Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
Digital subcommittee: Did not make recommendations on this point or the next two.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity. Avoid following the lead of others who violate this tenet.
Change: Last sentence is new.
Comment: An improvement.
Crimes
Current code:
Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects or victims of sex crimes.
Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges.
Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed.
My 2010 comment:
I would add: Understand that digital content remains available to search engines long after it was newsworthy. Journalists should consider this in deciding whether and how to identify juveniles and how to archive information, particularly about minor offenses.
Breaking-news reporting sometimes requires identification of people (when a child is missing, for instance, the name and photo are essential public information). Later developments, such as learning that the child was sexually assaulted, may provide strong reasons not to identify. As my friend Aly Colón said when we used to collaborate on ethics seminars: You can’t unring the bell, but you can stop ringing it.
Victims’ preferences should be a major factor, but not necessarily the only factor, in deciding whether to identify people in extremely degrading crimes such as sexual assault. Don’t let blanket policies such as “we don’t identify rape victims” add to the pain and anger of a victim who wants to go on the record, to fight back against the shame that society has too long misdirected at victims of sexual assault.
Digital subcommittee recommendation:
Here we see again the impact of the extended life of stories in new media. Stories in many cases live forever, but often journalists’ sense of responsibility for them ends at publication. It’s important to remain judicious about naming suspects, naming juveniles, and all these things as new information comes out, and as those people move on with their lives. The principle here, which we see emerging in many areas, is: A journalist’s responsibility to a story does not end with that story’s publication but continues throughout its long life.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects, criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges, and victims of sex crimes. Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed.
Consider the long-term implications of the extended reach and permanence of online publication. Provide updated and more complete information when appropriate.
Change: Original three paragraphs combined into one. New paragraph added about updating digital archives.
Comment: The last paragraph was in clear response to the digital subcommittee recommendation. The Ethics Committee was much more responsive to the digital subcommittee’s recommendations in this section than in the “Seek Truth” section.
Act Independently
Current code:
Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.
My 2010 comments: I did not suggest a change in the core principle for this section in 2010, but in 2012 I suggested that Poynter rename the similar section in its Guiding Principles for the Journalist “Act Transparently and Independently.” Poynter went a step further in its new Guiding Principles, replacing independence with transparency as a core principle.
Digital subcommittee recommendation:
We find a compelling case to be made for transparency being a stronger and more relevant journalistic principle than independence. Obligations and involvements are part of being civic actors. In a transformed media landscape where voices speak together, journalists do not benefit from isolation. Judicious involvements and thoughtful, complete disclosures of those involvements seem a more productive goal. We will say: The public’s right to know should be a journalist’s primary obligation, always. For an articulation of the rise of the principle of transparency, see the relevant section in the Poynter book “The New Ethics of Journalism.” Also see “Transparency is the New Objectivity” by Dave Weinberger.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
A journalist’s highest and primary obligation is to the public’s right to know.
Change: New wording, “highest and primary obligation,” recognizes that journalist might have other interests.
Comment: The committee’s failure to address the call for elevating transparency as a core value remains a huge disappointment in this draft. I favor pairing the two principles rather than the Poynter shift to transparency over independence (though independence is mentioned in the transparency section as desirable). I thought Tim McGuire made a great case for the continued importance of independence. I wish the Ethics Committee had led more public discussion of the relative importance of these two principles.
Conflicting interests
Current code:
Journalists should:
Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
My 2010 comment: The comment on the next point covers these two as well. I should also note here that the disclosure paragraph is the fourth paragraph of this section in the current code. I moved it up because the draft combined it with the first paragraph.
Digital subcommittee recommendation: The subcommittee recommended consideration of the issues raised above in connection with the point about remaining free of associations.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
Change: No change in wording. Disclosure paragraph combined with the first paragraph.
Comment: I think the fact that the committee made no changes in response to a call by the digital subcommittee to reconsider its views on independence speaks for itself.
Gifts and graft
Current code:
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.
My 2010 comment:
I find it interesting that the second and third points here really just elaborate on the first. But the code doesn’t elaborate further and address the controversial issue that resulted in Keith Olbermann’s suspension from MSNBC: whether a journalist can ethically contribute money to a political candidate or cause. Olbermann is not an isolated case; msnbc.com’s Bill Dedman reported in 2007 on how widespread political contributions by journalists are. Why does the code address what journalists may receive but not how they may donate? SPJ should discuss whether the code should go further and address non-political charitable contributions (if you can truly distinguish such things)? Or should the code say journalists may donate money to any cause or candidate but must disclose all contributions relating to anything they cover?
No recommendation from the digital subcommittee.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations that may conflict with an impartial approach to information-gathering.
Change: “… that may conflict with an impartial approach to information-gathering” changed to “… if they compromise journalistic integrity.”
Comment: As noted in my previous post, this is the sole mention of “community” in the draft, a contrast to the Poynter Guiding Principles, which made “community” a core principle now. I tend toward independence here, but I think aloofness from the community has hurt journalism and we should have a more nuanced discussion about how to maintain our integrity and be more involved in our communities.
Other independence issues
Current code:
Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.
My 2010 comment:
I would add: As entrepreneurial journalists and innovative organizations seek new business models for news, journalists should discuss ways to protect the integrity of editorial content and should be transparent about revenue streams and relationships with revenue sources. The ethical need to remain free of advertiser influence should not hinder journalists from working to develop healthy business models to support and sustain independent journalism.
The SPJ Code of Ethics interestingly and perhaps wisely avoids the issue of journalists stating opinions. I wonder how many journalists know or would even guess that the words “opinion” and “objective” never appear in the code. The truth is that opinions have long been an important part of journalism. Columnists, editorial writers and commentators are journalists, as well as just-the-facts reporters.
But opinions are controversial in journalism ethics now, key to the resignation of Dave Weigel and the firing of Juan Williams. Should SPJ address the issue of whether journalists should acknowledge their opinions (some call that transparency, some say that hurts their credibility)? Should SPJ give guidance on whether journalists should express opinions among themselves (Weigel’s offense)? Should SPJ weigh in on the debate over whether journalists should try to remain objective (I argue that that’s impossible and that acknowledging humanity is a better approach) or whether that results in deceptive reporting that Jay Rosen criticizes as the “view from nowhere“? I tend to like that the code doesn’t try to dictate right and wrong on an issue where journalists are so divided. But it should at least be discussed if you’re updating the code.
SPJ also should address the question of whether some journalists have taken independence to the point of aloofness, and whether that goes too far. Many journalists feel that community involvement is important for journalists, especially in smaller communities. Should SPJ provide some guidance here? Or do general principles of independence suffice?
Digital subcommittee recommendation:
Many journalists are not just journalists, but also publishers, promoters and businesspeople as entrepreneurial journalism finds success where larger-scale models are failing. For these journalists, relationships with advertisers, sponsors and other entities are critical to building a business. What guidance can speak to their dual roles and mitigate both the importance of maintaining the integrity of editorial content and the importance of relationship building? It seems to us that transparency, as a principle, is applicable here as well. Possible wording: “Entrepreneurial journalists should shield their coverage from undue influence of their funders. They should disclose their sources of funding and disclose any influence connected to the funding.”
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; do not pay for news or access.
Deny favored treatment to advertisers and donors, or any other special interests, and resist pressure to influence coverage.
Identify content provided by outside sources, whether paid or not. Distinguish news from advertising and marketing material. Shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.
Change: The sentence about being vigilant and courageous was moved to the truthfulness section. The “be wary” paragraph changed slightly from “avoid bidding for news” to “do not pay for news or access.” “Donors” were added to the favored-treatment paragraph. The paragraph about distinguishing news from advertising was moved from the truthfulness section, with an addition about identifying content from outside sources.
Comment: Since I faulted the committee’s decision to cut a transparency measure, I should acknowledge and appreciate this addition of a call for transparency. I’d like more, but that’s a good addition. The digital subcommittee’s suggestion about disclosing sources of funding was addressed in the next section.
Be Accountable
Current code:
Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.
Journalists should:
Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.
My 2010 comment:
I would add: Journalists should not hide behind arguments that the public doesn’t care about internal matters. Many in the public do care, and journalists should be accountable to them.
No recommendation from the digital subcommittee.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Journalists should be open in their actions and accept responsibility for them. Journalists should:
Clarify and explain news coverage and encourage a civil dialogue with the public over journalistic practices.
Change: “… invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct” changed to “encourage a civil dialogue with the public over journalistic practices.”
Comment: More tweaking.
Grievances
Current code:
Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.
Admit mistakes in full detail and correct them promptly, giving the correction similar play to the error.
My 2010 comment:
I would add: Corrections should clearly and specifically say what was wrong. A reference to the topic of the error is not sufficient. Recognize that errors can spread swiftly on digital channels. A journalist who published or promoted an erroneous story on multiple platform should make at least similar efforts to spread the correction. For instance, if a story was promoted twice on the organizational Twitter account and by several staff members on personal accounts, the correction should be noted twice on the organizational account, as well as on the personal accounts.
Digital subcommittee recommendation:
Misinformation travels farther and faster than ever. For a correction to have an impact, it must go where the misinformation went. That means that journalists and news organizations must make every effort to publish and share a detailed correction in the same places they published/shared the incorrect information, and resist any temptation to merely scrub the errors away.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Admit mistakes and correct them promptly and prominently wherever they appeared, including in archived material.
Change: Deleted “in full detail” and changed play reference to “wherever they appeared.” Added reference to archives.
Comment: So many news organizations correct vaguely, I’m mystified by the decision to remove “in full detail.” While I support the other two changes, they don’t go far enough.
Unethical practices
Current code:
Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.
Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.
My 2010 comment:
I would add: With rare exceptions, journalists should identify themselves fully in social media profiles and in direct contact with sources. One regular exception would be in consumer reporting, sunshine law tests or restaurant reviews, where the journalist is trying to report how a business or agency treats the general public. In those cases, the journalist does not have to actively identify, but should not misidentify if asked his or her purpose or profession.
No recommendation here from the digital subcommittee.
2014 Ethics Committee draft:
Expose unethical conduct in journalism.
Disclose sources of funding and relationships that might influence, or appear to influence, reporting.
Abide by the same high standards they expect of others.
Change: Slight wording change in the first and third paragraphs above. The paragraph on disclosure is new.
Comment: The paragraph on disclosing funding was suggested by the digital subcommittee in the independence section. It works here, too. The other two paragraphs were tweaked slightly.
Another suggestion
From my 2010 post:
Should the code address one of the most common questions I hear in discussions of social media ethics for journalists: Should we maintain separate private and public accounts? I personally think the code should allow flexibility on this issue. But it should admonish journalists to identify themselves (and their organization, unless they are freelancers) in any accounts they might use professionally. And a reminder might be in order that personal accounts should not be used in a way that compromises their professional integrity.
What do you think?
Whether you support the current draft or agree with my criticism, I hope you let the SPJ Ethics Committee know what you think (the draft has only eight comments so far, and two of them are mine). This is an important matter and I hope SPJ receives a lot of feedback from members and from other journalists.
About my blog name: Yes, I have a ridiculous blog name. It’s temporary, and it’s for a good cause.
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