The list of ethical challenges facing journalism today is a long one. How can we get at the truth when flooded by unverified information? How do we maintain integrity as new business models and partnerships become necessary for survival? How should journalists behave on social media platforms?

onMedia put a few questions on changing journalism ethics to Steve Buttry, an American journalist, editor and educator who writes and speaks frequently on the topic.

Should ethical standards in journalism evolve along with changes in the profession or are they immutable? 

Some values are certainly immutable, but ethical standards are more specific than the underlying values. And even values change over time. For instance, objectivity didn’t start as an important value of journalism, but was an economic response to serving news organizations of varying political views in a time when having a viewpoint was regarded as important. So the notion that all of our values are timeless is exaggerated anyway.

Take the general underlying value that journalists should attribute our sources of information. Perhaps that is immutable. But the specific standards of how we apply the value need to be updated to respond to such matters as technology (the ability to link to our sources of information) and practice (excessive use of unnamed sources and weak explanations of why reporters grant confidentiality to sources).

What is driving this need for change? 

Steve Buttry

Technology certainly is driving some of the change. In addition to the linking issue I’ve cited, public discussions on social media have presented ethical issues we need to address. The government’s ability to snoop has created ethical issues relating to unnamed sources and our ability to keep promises of confidentiality. The news cycle raises new issues relating to our long-held principles of fairness: Allegation and response often come in separate updates of a running story, for instance. The marketplace also presents new twists to old issues: The value of independence is a long-held value in journalism ethics, and new developments such as native advertising present new situations in which to apply that value.

We also can update our standards as people develop better practices independently of technology. A checklist is not a technological development, but it is the best system ever developed to prevent errors, so effective that it is required for such high-pressure professionals as surgeons and pilots. Well, when Craig Silverman [of the corrections blog Regret the Error] started advocating accuracy checklists for journalists, that wasn’t a technological development or a marketplace change. It was just a smart journalist calling us to raise our standards in a way we hadn’t thought of before. But he’s right, and we should require and teach the consistent use of checklists.

Can you give an example of how ethics should evolve in the context of technological developments?

Linking is a perfect example. Attribution has never been a value that journalists practiced consistently. Some attributed vaguely, especially if the competition had beaten them, either attributing to “media reports” or using passive voice, such as “was reported.” So the very fact that we can link now presents ethical choices and debates: Should we require linking in ethics codes or just encourage it in practice? My view is that ethical codes should say that journalists should link to their digital sources. I was pleased to see the New York Times address this, even if they did it as a matter of style, rather than ethics. And you should embed actual original materials (tweets, videos, documents) when possible, rather than merely quoting from them.

While you can’t link to your unnamed sources, technology presents important issues there, too. Ethics codes say we should keep promises of confidentiality, but that’s a technology issue today, too. If you grant confidentiality to a source, how do you protect that? Using encryption software, “burner” cellphones and other technology measures?

Are considerations like objectivity and fairness now considered outdated?

The journalist who is practicing objectivity still exercises opinions several times on every story. You decide that this story is more worthy of your time. Then you decide on the sources you will interview for the story. Then you decide which facts you gather belong in the story and which won’t make the story. And which fact(s) will lead the story, and which words you use to tell the story. We think of ourselves as being objective throughout the process, and we call these “news judgments,” rather than opinions.

Fairness has its flaws, too, because we started equating fairness with balance, which sometimes abdicated our obligation to seek the truth and report it. Instead of actually reporting the truth, we balanced conflicting statements in the name of fairness, sometimes publishing statements we knew were lies and failing to debunk them sufficiently or at all.

I don’t dismiss the value of neutrality (which I prefer to “objectivity,” because we aren’t objects; we’re people). And I do think we should be fair. But I think some of our practices in the name of these old values need re-examination, and I’m pleased that we are discussing these values and how to apply them.

What has the rise of social media had on thinking about journalistic ethics?

Let’s take two examples of ways that social media has presented ethical challenges: Verification of facts and expression of personal opinions.

Verifying information we heard from the community has always been an important challenge for journalists. You get an anonymous tip over the phone or you get a tip from a trusted source and you don’t publish it right away; you get to work trying to learn whether it’s true. Social media is another important source of tips for journalists. But the tips are right out there in public (as many rumors we chase have always been), and they have this retweet button that lets us add our credibility to the tips and rumors. So we need to learn how to join the social media conversation and still apply our standards of verification and accuracy.

Opinions have never been inherently bad journalism. As I noted, journalism was largely opinionated before the ethic of objectivity developed. And even in the era of objectivity, we had editorial writers, cartoonists and columnists who were still expected to express their opinions. And, of course, in our newsrooms and in bars and private conversations, even the so-called objective journalists were pretty free with their personal opinions, even about matters they covered. Sometimes journalists got in trouble for expressing these opinions, but usually the conversations were private, among colleagues, family and friends, so no one got in trouble. Social media feel like a similar conversation, but the setting is more public.

I don’t think news organizations are in agreement in how to address these social media issues, but I think we’re having some good conversations about the issues, and providing better guidance than we were a few years ago.

How do you ensure good journalism ethics are actually followed by journalists? Publish a code?

I think ethics codes are helpful, but good conversations about journalism are more helpful and more important. I have been involved in six notable efforts to improve ethical guidance for journalists. I think they show the variety of both the issues we face and the guidance we need.

Two were efforts to provide overall codes for journalists to follow, the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics and Poynter’s Guiding Principles for the Journalist. I think both updates were helpful, but neither went as far as I would have liked (both, for instance, failed to address linking). The Radio Television Digital News Association also is working to update its ethics code.

Three other efforts took narrow slices of journalism ethics, rather than trying to update a whole code, and provided detailed advice in that particular area:

• Rules of the Road by J-Lab, examining ethics of hyperlocal news.
• Telling the Truth and Nothing But, a joint effort by several journalism organizations addressing plagiarism and fabrication.
• The Verification Handbook, produced by the European Journalism Centre.

In addition the Online News Association is working on a project to produce building blocks for news organizations to produce their own ethics codes, reflecting their values and standards. We expect that project to be finished later this spring.

In general, how do you feel that the profession is doing these days when it comes to ethics?

I’m pleased that we have such a robust discussion of ethics in journalism, and I think the conversation will result in more ethical journalism. We have honest disagreements about some topics, and I don’t think that means the people who disagree with me are unethical. While I am pleased with this attention to ethics, the frequency with which we see shameful practices such as plagiarism and fabrication is discouraging. I was discouraged that [CNN host and Washington Post columnist] Fareed Zakaria’s employers were not more responsive to the thorough documentation of his extensive plagiarism.

All in all, I’d say journalists care a lot about ethics and generally make good ethical decisions. But I’d still like us to do better.

Steve Buttry has more than 40 years’ experience in the news business. He has been a reporter, editor and educator. He was formerly the Digital Transformation Editor for Digital First Media and today is the a visiting scholar at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. He blogs extensively on the media at The Buttry Diary. You can find him on Twitter at @stevebuttry. 

Photo credits: flickr/Dan Mason CC:BY-NC-SA; Steve Buttry; flickr/Toban B. CC:BY-NC) 

Interview by Kyle James, post edited by Kate Hairsine

Related onMedia Posts

‘The values of traditional journalism still matter’

Bloodshed in the news – dealing with graphic images

Digital photo editing and the ethical line between aesthetics and truth?

Visualizing Palestine, Palestinian Territories (in English and Arabic)
Infographics, visualizations, data journalism, design

Part of the “Guide to Administrative Detention” poster

Visualizing Palestine uses beautifully designed infographics to tell stories about Palestinians and the Palestinian territories. It covers topics usually absent from the discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as detailing the lack of access to medical care in Lebanon, or showing the school enrollment rates of Palestinian refugee children who have fled Syria for neighboring countries. Each infographic is accompanied by a list of sources. The site makes the complex data behind the infographics understandable and publishes its visualizations under a creative commons license so they can be used by other media.

“You don’t remember numbers or statistics. You remember stories. We create the visualizations so people can use them as tools to advocate for something.” Ramzi Jaber, co-founder of Visualizing Palestine in an interview with DW

HarassMap, Egypt (in Arabic and English)
Mapping, social media, crowdsourcing, social research, mobile technology

HarassMap was set up in response to the high rates of sexual assault in Egypt. Launched in 2010, it allows people to anonymously report when and where they were victims of sexual harassment. They can do this by calling, texting, emailing or tweeting. Incidents are then documented on an online map, based on the open-source Ushahidi mapping software. The idea is to use crowdsourcing to better understand sexual harassment in Egypt, where there is little research on the subject. HarassMap is a volunteer-based, independent initiative. You can read more about the project on DW.

Stop Fake, Ukraine (in English and Russian)
Fact checking, citizen journalism, social media

Run by a small group of current and former students from the Mohyla School of Journalism in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, StopFake curates and refutes false claims spread by Russian media about the conflict in Ukraine. The fake-busting site has proved hugely popular since it started in March 2014. In its first few weeks of operation, it had 1.5 million visitors and some of the weekly video round-ups detailing the fakes have more than 100,000 views on YouTube. Many of its reports make the rounds on social media.

“We do the same things as anyone else would do – find the truth, check the facts, talk to people, and these are universal ways to improve journalism in any country.” Co-founder Yevhen Fedchenko in an interview with onMedia

CGNet Swara, India
Citizen journalism, mobile technology

CG Net Swara allows people to ring up and leave a voice message about something important to them, or listen to the stories of other users. The service is most commonly used to air grievances, such as the non-payment of wages, or to pass on local news. Selected recordings are checked by journalists and published on the site, as are text summaries. Some issues are also passed onto contacts in the mainstream media. The idea is for CG Net Swara to act as a citizen journalist’s forum in India’s impoverished Chhattisgarh state, where there is a shortage of media services in local tribal languages.

“Our primary goal and area of operation is media dark zones. There are 100 million people living in central tribal India and they have no voice.” Founder Shubhranshu Choudhary in an interview with the Doha Center for Media Freedom

Rutas del Conflicto, Columbia (in Spanish)
Database, mapping, crowdsourcing, mobile technology

The Routes of Conflict project tracks massacres and violence that have taken place in Columbia since 1982. Users can search the online database according to victims’ names, locations or armed groups. The resulting map shows how many people were killed in each incident, who the victims were, who was responsible for the killings and also provides links to relevant documents. The information is also available via a mobile app.

African SkyCam, Kenya
Drone journalism

African SkyCam is a group of journalists who want to show newsrooms that there is a cost effective way of capturing aerial footage to give African audiences new and independent perspectives on a story. Because African media organizations usually don’t have their own helicopters, they have to rely on hitching lifts with police or military to get certain shots. Drones are a way of being more independent.

“With an eye in the sky, African journalists can tell stories that might have been impossible without access to aerial footage.” Founder Dickens Onditi Olewe in an interview with onMedia

Khabar Lahariya, India (in English as well as several other languages local to India)
Citizen journalism, newspaper collective

Khabar Lahariya is a small weekly newspaper published in several local languages by a group of marginalized rural women in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states. The idea behind the eight-page paper is to spread and promote information about life in rural areas – covering everything from reported rape to a house fire in a local village. Founded in 2002, the paper now has 40 women journalists and a print run of around 6,000. It’s estimated a single copy of the paper is read by ten or more people. The collective launched an online site in 2013.

“We expose problems and we follow up on the solutions.” Reporter Meera Devi in an interview with The Hindu

CONNECTAS (in Spanish, Portuguese and English)
Networking, investigative journalism

CONNECTAS is a non-profit journalism project for Latin America with the aim of promoting transnational investigative journalism and training.

“The media in Latin America have focused excessively on what happens in the countries’ capital cities, and report very little about what is going on countrywide, much less what is happening around the continent.” CONNECTAS founder Carlos Eduardo Huertas in an article published by the Nieman Foundation

Poderopedia (in Spanish)
Database, visualizations, fact checking

Poderopedia provides a verified source of information on influential politicians and business people, such as who their family members are, where they went to school and university, and who they have worked for in the past. It also visualizes the relationships between the people and the organizations in its data base, revealing networks of influence. The platform first started in Chile, where business and politics are closely connected, and has subsequently expanded to Venezuela and Colombia.

“We consider Poderopedia, in its call for transparency and dissemination of data, to be a mechanism against the lack of transparency that currently, above all, characterizes Venezuelan institutions, both private and public.” Marianela Balbi, director of Venezuela’s Press and Society Institute.

Africa Check (in English)
Fact checking

Africa Check aims to sort fact from fiction on a variety of African topics, such as the real population of Nigeria or claims that cancer causes more deaths than AIDS on the continent. Founded in June 2012, the project runs in a partnership with the journalism department of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It has 50,000 to 60,000 unique visitors each month. It also has a slew of resources for journalists on its site about how to fact check properly. Read more about the project on onMedia.

“There is a huge increase in the flow of information and also of misinformation One of the things we are concerned about is giving journalists tools to verify this information.” Africa Check founder Peter Cunliffe-Jones

Animal Político, Mexico (in Spanish)
Digital media, social media

Animal Político is an online news site devoted to Mexican politics that is especially popular with young readers. It attracts more than three million visitors per month and has nearly a million likes on Facebook – numbers that continue to grow rapidly. The site started off as a Twitter news service in 2009 and since its inception, the founders have emphasized the use of social media to attract readers. Interestingly, it’s a freestanding digital media organization – which means it’s not supported by grants and foundations, or by another media institution.

“We don’t care that the (Mexican) president went to Querétaro or Michoacán today and gave a speech….We actually care a lot more about … the social impact that policies have on people, the civic organizations working to better the country, and about human rights violations.” Founder Daniel Eilemberg in an interview with WLRN

Chicas Poderosas, Latin America (in English and Spanish)
Data journalism, networking

Chicas Poderosas is a network and training model to encourage female journalists in Latin America to embrace digital technologies and data journalism. It’s about building a diverse digital network of digital journalists.

“At Chicas we help journalists learn technology and we connect them with mentors, developers and designers so they can keep learning.” Founder Mariana Santos in an interview with the Knight Foundation

InfoAmazonia, Brazil (in English, Spanish and Portugese)
Mapping, database, geojournalism, citizen journalism, news aggregator

The project tracks forest loss and other environmental issues, such as bush fires, in the Amazon basin and displays this information in interactive maps. To do this it, InfoAmazonia uses a combination of satellite and other data as well as citizen reporting from the nine countries of the Amazon region. It also aggregates news stories about the Amazon.

“The ultimate goal is that displaying this information with such impacting visuals will help to elevate the debate on public policy in this region to another level.” Gustavo Faleiros, founder of Infoamazonia in an interview with Visualloop.com

Plataforma de Periodismo (in Spanish)
Networking

Plataforma de Periodismo aims to improve the coverage of conflict and post-conflict Columbia and create a network of journalists who cover these issues. The website is set up as a training space, with resources, case studies and digital tools.

“We saw the need to create a digital space to train, inform, and reflect on these topics,” said project coordinator Edilma Prada Céspedes in an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

Code for Africa
Data journalism, networking

The Code for Africa initiative aims to nurture the skills necessary for people to find, access and use data in order to promote more transparency. There are already country chapters in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa and plans for several other countries to follow.

Compiled by Holger Hank, Peter Deselaers, Guy Degen and Steffen Leidel, edited by Kate Hairsine