Ethics codes should guide journalists in the world where we live and work, not the world where we wish we worked.
At a discussion at the Excellence in Journalism conference last August, several members of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Committee indicated they thought the SPJ Code of Ethics just needed “tweaking,” if it needed anything.
Here’s a surprise: They decided just to tweak it.
The code needs an overhaul and it got a touch-up.
Journalism is changing and journalists make ethical decisions in unfamiliar situations. Journalism ethics codes need to provide helpful guidance for journalists. The SPJ Code of Ethics, last revised in 1996, is perhaps the most-cited code and for many years was the most helpful. Now it’s terribly outdated and needs to reflect the world where journalists work.
The first draft at an update feels more like an effort to resist change than an effort to guide journalists in a time of change. (more…)
The Buttry Diary 