• Eugene L. Meyer
• Center for International Media Assistance

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04 November 2011Codes of ethics for journalists have long been established and widespread in Western democracies. In such countries, they are universally voluntary, often issued and adopted by leading organizations of journalists. They incorporate best practices that may go beyond the laws of libel, defamation, and privacy.

They are largely guidelines without official mechanisms for enforcement. This self-regulation is sometimes seen as preemptive, to ward off any potential government interference with the freedom of the press. They exist largely in the background, discussed in academic circles and among the hierarchy of print publications and broadcast institutions. The latter typically have their own company code of ethics, which are aligned with and often go further than the general professional code of ethics. The codes are actionable–providing for the suspension or firing of journalists who step out of bounds.

At large news organizations in the United States, standards of journalistic ethics are so ingrained that when ethical problems arise in the daily life of reporters and editors they are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, usually without reference to formal codes.

This paper deals with more general, profession-wide standards. When these standards–whether they are formal or informal–are breached, there are plenty of media critics, ombudsmen, and citizen watchdogs to call out the offenders.

From a Western perspective, journalism codes of ethics are an obvious benefit, akin to the preamble to the U.S. Declaration of Independence that says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident …”

In the not-so-free world, they are not so self-evident. Nor are they always, or even often, the products of a self-regulating free and robust press. And even when they are the products of press associations, they may represent a cultural and political compromise with a society or government that holds a more restrictive view of what journalists should and should not report.

Similarly, efforts to require government licensing or certain approved training, thereby limiting who may report, must be seen for what they are–attempts to control the dissemination of information rather than establishing ethical guidelines for journalists to follow.

The very phrase “code of ethics” means different things in different places. They are moral principles, not laws, but sometimes they are incorrectly conflated.