The life of any person is regulated not only by legal, but also by ethical and moral standards. They are not spelled out in any regulatory legal acts, but they are often followed no less reverently than laws. Ethical standards apply not only to people's lives, but also to their professional activities. There are professions in which all activities are clearly regulated. There are professions where ethical choices need to be made almost daily. Journalism is such a profession. She has her own ethical rules.
What is professional ethics?
To consider the essence and functions of journalistic ethics, we first try to understand what professional ethics is. Consider what its essence lies.
Professional ethics - these are the norms that regulate the labor relations of people, as well as the attitude of a person to his professional duty and duties.
Professional ethics
It:
- professional qualities of a specialist;
- the relationship of the specialist and the people with whom he interacts;
- team and society relations;
- intra-collective relations;
- goals and methods of training specialists.
The content of moral ethics includes norms that prescribe certain rules of relations between people depending on the subject of professional ethics. If we talk about journalism, these are professional qualities, especially communication with sources of information, other journalists and the environment.
Ethics of Journalists
In matters of ethical standards, difficulties always arise. This happens because professional journalistic ethics are not the principles, rules and norms of moral conduct of journalists accepted and supported by public opinion.
Basis - the concept of the best ways to fulfill professional duty in accordance with the ethical ideas of society in their application to professional activities. There is a specific set of rules and principles of decent behavior, prohibitions. Compliance with these rules is controlled by the conscience of the journalist from the inside and professional associations from the outside. In addition, there is public scrutiny.
In Russia, G.V. Lazutin paid much attention to the essence and functions of journalistic ethics. She has written several textbooks on the subject.
The functions of journalistic ethics
The functions of ethics are divided into three areas:
- positive function (description of the boundaries of moral behavior through facts, deeds and their analysis);
- regulatory function (a critical analysis of public morals with analysis and justification of the need for society of any norms of behavior);
- evaluation function (demonstration of examples of moral positive and negative).
You can also talk about professional morality. In journalism, human contacts are directly included in the field of activity, morality encourages the media employee to introspect and offers criteria according to which it can be carried out. Professional moral:
- regulates the behavior of journalists;
- shows the motives of serving the society from the noble side.
Ethical principles
Among the principles of professional ethics, six main ones are usually distinguished.
- Social responsibility - the willingness to answer and bear responsibility to society for the information that is signed in the name of the author.
- Objectivity and truthfulness - the information provided by a journalist should be truthful, accurate, comprehensive, represent the interests of all parties.
- Good faith - a meticulous verification of facts, their accurate reproduction.
- Honesty - failure to use one's official position for personal gain, keeping sources of information secret.
- Respect for the honor and dignity of the individual lies in the non-dissemination of unverified information, as well as in the prohibition of invasion of privacy.
- Professional solidarity consists of caring for the prestige of the profession, respect for the trust of colleagues and the audience.
Codes of Journalistic Ethics
The first professional ethical codes of journalists began to appear at the beginning of the XX century. In 1918, the French Charter of Conduct was adopted. Over the course of the century, various international journalistic meetings have been held on issues of the profession. Under the influence of the concept of a free press, American Canons of Journalism were written. In 1978, UNESCO issued a declaration on the basic principles of the contribution of the media to the consolidation of peace and mutual understanding. In 1983, the International Principles of Journalistic Ethics were adopted.
International documents on which the professional ethics of the media is based
It:
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (says a journalist should not violate human rights).
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (UN).
The UNESCO Act is a declaration of the basic principles regarding the contribution of the media to the consolidation of peace and international understanding.
European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
International ethical principles
The international principles of journalistic ethics were adopted in 1983 at a meeting of professional journalistic organizations in Prague.
- People have the right to receive information. They should receive objective, accurate, comprehensive information. Everyone can freely express their point of view through the media of communication and information, as well as through various forms of culture.
- A journalist must be faithful to objective reality. One of its main tasks is the guaranteed receipt by the audience of reliable and truthful information through an honest reflection of reality. The facts in the information material must be true. Their true meaning must be preserved without distortion. A media employee should make every effort to ensure that the audience receives enough information to form an accurate picture of the event.
- A journalist has social responsibility. Information is not a commodity, but a public good. The journalist is responsible for the information transmitted to the owners of the media, but above all to the public. Responsibility also requires adherence to moral and ethical principles.
- A journalist must respect professional integrity. She assumes that a media employee has the right to refrain from work contrary to his personal convictions. Professional honesty does not allow expressing private interests, accepting gifts from interested parties. This also includes respect for intellectual property and the inadmissibility of plagiarism. It is unacceptable for a journalist to copy other people's materials without indicating the source.
- Media should be accessible, and the public should be able to participate in their work. Journalists should contribute in every way to this accessibility. In addition, it is necessary to correct errors in response to requests from readers, to give the right to readers or heroes of materials to respond.
- A journalist respects a person’s privacy and dignity. He must also defend international human rights, including his reputation against defamation and false accusations.
- A journalist respects public interests, democratic institutions of society, and norms of public morality.
- The journalist respects social values, diversity of cultures. In particular, he defends the values of humanism (peace, democracy, national liberation, human rights), respects the distinctive features of any national culture and the right of the people to independently choose and develop their political, cultural, economic and other systems. The media create a climate of trust in international relations. The media employee must be aware of relevant international agreements, resolutions and declarations.
- The journalist is trying to prevent wars and other events that impede the development of mankind. The media should refrain from justifying aggression, hatred, violence, discrimination, awaken sympathy for the needs of other people, ensure respect for the rights and dignity of all peoples and nations, regardless of their beliefs.
- The journalist must promote the international order in the field of information. The new order is aimed at the democratization of information and communication, based on the peaceful interaction of peoples and the preservation of their cultural identity. The journalistic duty is to maintain and strengthen peaceful relations between states and peoples.
Russian Code of Ethics
An interesting story is the formation of a code of journalistic ethics in Russia. G.V. Lazutin was actively involved in this issue. Speaking about the essence and functions of journalistic ethics, G. Lazutina He identifies four principles on which the code of journalistic ethics in Russia is based.
The first principle is to respect the priority of public interests over group ones. Basically, this principle directs journalists to comply with the laws.
The second principle is to comply with both international acts and the laws of your country, as well as respect for human rights.
The third principle is the observance of moral standards and standards of a culture of relationships. A journalist must show good breeding, decency, respect for the honor and dignity of the individual.
The fourth principle - the implementation of activities related to professional activities, should be deliberate, thorough and honest.
The Russian code of journalistic ethics was created on the basis of existing European codes. The Code of Professional Ethics for a Journalist was adopted in our country by the First Congress of the Union of Journalists of the USSR in 1991. The Code contained three chapters: principles of professional ethics, violation of professional ethics, and blaming. The document itself contains the following points:
- Under any circumstances, a journalist must act in accordance with a code of professional ethics.
- He is obliged to comply with the laws of the country, but in fulfilling his professional duty, he rejects attempts at outside interference, recognizing only the jurisdiction of his colleagues.
- A journalist has the right to disseminate only the information whose source is known, the reliability of which he is convinced. Efforts must be made to avoid prejudice to inaccuracy, incompleteness or concealment of information; clearly separate facts and opinions, assumptions, versions; You must not resort to illegal methods of obtaining information; the right not to provide information must be respected. Misrepresentation, slander is a serious professional crime. The journalist must admit his mistakes and apologize for them; he is responsible in his own name for the reliability of each message.
- Keeping a secret information source.
- Countering extremism, restriction of civil rights. Respectful of the people with whom you have to work. A person is innocent until the court proves otherwise.
- The work of a journalist is incompatible with the occupation of positions in government bodies and authorities, parties and other political organizations. A media employee’s activities cease when he picks up a weapon.
- It is not worth it for a journalist to use his name and reputation to disseminate commercial or advertising information. He does not use confidential information known to him for personal interests.
- Promotes the development of fair competition, respecting the rights of their colleagues. Copyright is a matter of respect for every journalist. Plagiarism is unacceptable.
- A journalist must refuse an assignment if, when fulfilling it, he must violate one of the ethical principles.
- A media employee has the right to enjoy the protection guaranteed by law.
Code of Ethics Violations
Violations of journalistic ethics are common in everyday life. Some rules of codes may be binding, some debatable, some permissible to violate. These standards do not limit, but only help in making objective decisions. They define the territory of free creative space. If a journalist goes beyond the borders, he develops tense relations with a source of information, an audience, colleagues. In addition, codes of ethics are protection when laws are powerless.
In practice, codes are violated for several reasons. Many ethical codes have been adopted for a long time, and at the moment they do not correspond to the realities of life. Secondly, situations are complex and ambiguous. And over time, they do not become easier.
There are four groups of violations:
- Journalist and audience (for example, in the pursuit of sensation, they publish news that provokes excessive panic).
- Media employee and source of information (obtaining information by fraud, publishing without providing evidence of legality).
- Journalist and publication hero (in the pursuit of beautiful design, they make hints of nationality, create stereotypes about peoples according to the act of one person).
- Media employee and profession (looks bad during the experiment, is shown in public in an unacceptable form).
In order to maintain our reputation and the reputation of the entire professional community, it is important to follow the rules of journalistic ethics. It is possible to violate them, neglect them only in cases of urgent need, if the media employee acts for the good of society. Well, of course, in order to comply with the norms, you need to know the essence and functions of journalistic ethics.