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JOURNALISM ETHICS

Good morning class, today we will present you our work about Ethics in Journalism, as well as an
opinion by 5 authors on this controversial issue. In the final part of the presentation, we will give the
example of a case where the media did not respect ethics.

[1] WHAT ARE ETHICS IN JOURNALISM?

Ethics in journalism translates into the common values that guide journalists. These values address
the rights and obligations that all journalists and others working in the media field, with the aim of
them to carry out a worthy and responsible job.

[2] TOM ROSENTIEL (research and writing by Inês Félix)

The first author we will introduce you, as well as his opinion about Ethics in Journalism, is Tom
Rosenstiel, an author, press critic, journalist and executive director of the American Press Institute –
an educational nonprofit organization affiliated with the News Media Alliance (previously the
Newspaper Association of America). The main mission of the institute’s is to promote the
advancement of news and media; this organization does research work, calls leaders and also
creates new tools and supports for journalism.

Tom Rosenstiel is further a senior member / fellow at the Brookings Institution – which is an american
research group founded in 1916, that conducts research and education in the social sciences,
primarily in economics (and tax policy), foreign and metropolitan policy, global economy and
economic development and lastly, in governance – however he is a non-resident senior.

Rosenstiel was also the founder of the Project for Excellence in Journalism – PEJ – and, for 16 years,
was the director too. PEJ is a research organization in which the study object is the news media and
this institute is also a part of the Pew Research Center, in Washington D.C..
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“Shining City”, his first novel, was published in February 2017, by Ecco of Harper Collins. “The Good Lie”,
the second one, in 2019.

A Journalist for more than 30 years, Tom worked for the Los Angels Times as a media critic, as a chief
congressional for Newsweek magazine and further as vice chairman and co-founder of the
Committee of Concerned Journalists.

Among his seven books of non-fiction, he is also the co-author of “The Elements of Journalism: What
Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect.” Rosenstiel appears often on television,
radio and in print, and has written widely on politics and media.

Tom Rosenstiel co-edited Kelly McBride's book, "The New Ethics of Journalism." This book analyses
the state of the press today and the various perspectives that have emerged. In an interview with Luís
Fernando Silva Pinto, Tom discusses this new journalism, according to him, more dynamic and
participatory, giving his personal and professional opinion throughout the interview.

In the following excerpts of the interview, we can understand Rosenstiel's position on this theme of
ethics in journalism:

«Whenever you have a great technological revolution in communications, people wonder if it was for
better or for worse. The answer is always the same: "It was for both."»

Luis Fernando Silva Pinto questioned Tom about what his anchor is for confirmation of news, if he use
the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or other type of newspapers, to
which he replied:

«I live in Washington, but I read both the New York Times and the Washington Post. And if they're
aligned, I trust the information. I'm of a certain generation, I read them in printed format, but also
digital. My daughter, who is a political scientist, doesn't even touch on paper. She thinks most
publications are biased. »

Later, in the conversation, Luís Fernando Silva Pinto wonder if ethics has always been a fundamental
instrument in journalism, and if it is changing and how, stating that in the past the main and true
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elements of ethics in journalism were the truth, the independence and the minimization of damage,
questioning whether they maintain today and tom's response was very clear:

«So many people have asked me a lot about that. I firmly believe that citizens continue to a want the
same things of journalism. Therefore, the responsibilities that journalists have to them are the same.
In other words, I want you to tell me the truth. I need to know that you have verified the facts and that
they are accurate, not literally gable, but that you contextualized them, that they are true. I want you
to be independent, I want to know that you are not a secret agent for a particular political party, that if
you say you think such a thing, that you really think, and that you are fundamentally on my side, on the
side of your audience, that if you say you think such a thing, that you really think, and that is
fundamentally on my side, on the side of your audience, affiliation. I want to think that you don't want
to exploit me, that you don't defend advertiser interests. 16 years ago, if you covered an event, you
could decide not to publish because you thought it was fake. Today, that event is tweeted live.»

«The person can say whatever they want. It could be a big lie. Today, your job as a journalist is to tell
me, "What the x person said and what you heard an hour ago and is spreading across the internet
should not be taken seriously, because of this and this and that. So your obligation to be a good truth
counter is the same, but the way to execute that obligation this obligation has changed radically and
requires more from you. Before, all it took was to think, "I think it's a lie. I'm not going to divulgue."»

«It can be said that before, we lived an era of "trust me" on the news, so much so that Walter Cronkite
closed the news with as words "And that's how things are."»

«I think the journalists are better today and I think the tools we have are much better. Our ability to
explain is much better. I usually describe this as follows: 20 years ago, if you were covering a story for
a newspaper, you had to provide a few six things: the main story, the headline, a photo, maybe a chart
and you could also do a secondary matter. Today, if you're covering a story, there are hundreds of tools
you can use, from interactive graphics to hyperlinks to full transcripts of interviews, from previous
subjects... It's amazing.»

«I think the quality of national journalism that countries will have will improve. When you and I learned
to be journalists, we paid attention to the older ones and tent to do the things they do. So, we would
make the technical rector and become better writers, but it never occurred to us that in the future we
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would invent new ways of doing journalism, respecting ethics, one of the most important supports of
this incredible profession.»

Reading this interview, we noticed a position of agreement that Tom takes in relation to Ethics in
Journalism, defending it to the fullest and believing that without respecting it, it is impossible to do
pure journalism.

[3] KELLY MCBRIDE (research and writing by Inês Pinto)

Kelly McBride is the vice president at the Poynter Institute since 2002, a school and media strategy
center dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists and leaders. Before joining Poynter, she was a
daily newspaper reporter in the Northwest for 15 years.

McBride is also a commentator of media ethics therefore she did write a book with Tom Rosenstiel
“The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century” on 2014. Beside the books she had
some articles.

She developed new ideas about transparency in ethics and defends that today, many journalists are
non-professionals and they put their perspectives in stories.

«For a journalist, confidence and competence come not from knowing all the answers, but from
having a clear understanding of journalistic values and ethics, combined with the intellect to ask good
questions that reveal alternative solutions and new pathways to the truth.» - Kelly McBride 2014.

[3] JAVIER DARÍO RESTREPO (research and writing by Inês Silva)

He was a famous Columbian journalist. He had a great career for 50 years. He also wrote about 30
books about ethic journalism and won some awards like Premio Gabriel García, Marquez de
Periodismo and Premio Nacional de Periodosimo Simón Bolivar.
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[3.1] Best sentences about Ethic Journalism by Restrepo

«A good journalism is always in love with the truth.»

«For the journalists the word truth means loyalty to the facts.»

«The truth of journalist must be complete. Must explore the reasons. ‘’Why?’’ ‘’Like What?’’, ‘’Where?’’,
‘’Who?’’.»

«If the law and its agents have to take charge of corrupt, rapists and murderers and prevent them
from doing badly to society, ethics takes care of the honest so that they not fall asleep on the laurels
of their goodness and stay active, passionately active, in realizing your human potential.»

Javier Darío Restrepo was a truly defender of ethic journalism. He defends that ethic is an exercise of
liberty. He also agrees that nobody has the obligation to be a ethic person. For Restrepo ethic is
another way to show insatisfaction.

[4] DANIEL CORNU (research and writing by Mafalda)

Daniel cornu is a journalist who was born in 1939 in Genève in Switzerland. He was director of the
Romanesque Center for Journalists of the University of Neuchâtel and was still for ten years editor –
head of the newspaper Tribune of Genève.

He also wrote the books:

1. Journalism and truth – For an Ethics of Information – In it the author reflects on the ethics of
information in current times and initiatives launched to the extent of regulating journalistic
activity.
It also states that the deontology remains undefined: whether reference texts are outdated or
incomplete, the disproving of powers of the control bodies and the commercial logic of the
media.
2. Les Medias Ont- Ils Trop de Pouvoir? – In this book the author addresses the influence of the
media and its power. it still reflects whether the press shapes the individual or if simply the
public opinion, in addition makes an analysis to the discourse of radio and television.
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3. Journalisme et Vérité – In this book are addressed the conditions that allow individuals to
inform about current facts and their transformations to perform good journalism. In the book
is still made a reflection on the economy of the media and how truth has become a profitable
business.
It also addresses new technologies.

According to the Author, information ethics underlies journalism and the media. The media has as
missis provide information and train people so that they have a critical spirit. These are still social
cohesion boosters.

Ethical rules are not necessarily distinguished, as they are a set of rules that guide an action.

Ethics designates practices that are ousted by the space left by moral norms. Ethics tends to meet
pragmatic purposes but yields the subtlest forms of utilitarianism.

To restore their image journalists, resort to ethics, and the media still impose under themselves
codes of conduct, whenever their credibility is called into question.

Ethics can be analyzed in three points:

• At first it frames the sociologic and historical analysis of moral rules and at this point a
distinction is made between societies.
• At the second point a philosophic analysis is made based on morale where one seeks to break
up on which to site good and evil.
• And finally, a meta-ethics analysis is made that questions several issues creating theories
that overcome the support of formal criticism of moral discourse.

For Cornu, the ethics of information also includes the media and all the public involved and
journalistic ethics is the most observable aspect in the ethics of information.

[5] EUGÊNIO BUCCI (research and writing by Inês Pinto)

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Eugênio Bucci is a Brazilian teacher at the School of Communications and Arts in the University of São
Paulo. He is also a journalist and throughout life wrote many books one of them was “Sobre ética e
imprensa” .

Ethics, independence, virtue, lack of transparency and editorial independence on account conflicts of
commercial interests versus social interests, the production process of news, exemption, objectivity
and journalistic impartiality where themes analyzed by Bucci systematically.

Bucci defends that when the journalism power acts to remove from the citizen the information that is
due to it, is eroding the bases of the exercise of ethical journalism.

«Reporting is an ethical duty of journalists»

- Eugênio Bucci 2019

[6] THE CASE OF UNETHICAL JOURNALISM – AMANDA KNOX CASE

This was ad-murder case where student Amanda Knox was early considered and pleading guilty to
the death of her roommate, where evidence was altered and in the minds of the people, from the
beginning, the idea that Amanda was a murderer was attached. The outcome was completely
different, after the torture she went through, by justice and the media, the final verdict declared her
totally innocent.

«My innocence didn’t save me because the media created a story … and people liked that story»

- Amanda Knox

She accused the media of producing “clickbait” stories while she was imprisoned instead of
examining the evidence of the case. She also spoke about her family being tormented by the press.

This case makes us see that Journalism often has a huge influence on opinion, whether positive or
negative. Amanda Knox suffered negatively with the media for defamation without them wanting to
know her side of the history and only the side that supposedly gave more views.
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Amanda Knox suffers a lot because media, according to heralways care about the clicks and not about
the truth. Journalism must be truly to inform in a perfect way everybody.

Journalism must be fair and may see the two sides of the question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6SMUQUi4lU~