In an era characterized by the widespread use of algorithmic systems and platforms in news production and distribution practices, the ethical practices of journalists face significant challenges. ...Drawing on Floridi's onlife framework, this study aims to shed light on journalist-machine interactions and explores new ways to rearchitect journalism ethical standards through an integrative, object-oriented approach. In-depth interviews with local news workers throughout the U.S. reveal a range of issues related to decontextualization in algorithmic platform design, the hidden price of platform partnerships, and the growing reliance on automated tools that foreshadow ethical issues to come. These algorithmically-induced challenges appear to be particularly pronounced in local newsrooms, highlighting the disproportionate impact of algorithmic systems on under-served media sectors. Discussions are made around the constant push-and-pull over editorial power dynamics apparent in local news workers' use of algorithmic systems. A distributed responsibility model is proposed as a practical way to hold multiple actors, including both humans and algorithms, accountable for journalism's ethical standards in the algorithmic era.
This study examines how the United States community newspapers engage community members and how editors view challenges of citizen participatory and collaboration practices with particular focus on ...ethical issues. To address this, the study conducted a content analysis of interactive news features offered by online newspapers and in-depth interviews with news editors. Findings reveal various ways that local newsrooms seemingly invite citizens to participate in telling the community news. Letters-to-the-editor were discussed most frequently in all aspects of their discussions-both in positive and negative ways. Legal concerns did not arise as such concerns were avoided and filtered before inclusion and publication, but ethical considerations were also discussed modestly. Editors as a whole generally turned to ideas reflected in traditional journalism codes of conduct for citizens as a guide in their practice of submitting content with primary focus placed on truth telling, independence, and transparency. Implications are discussed in terms of citizen news engagement, news collaboration, and participatory journalism and the continued institutional control of content through normalization of the news and separation between professional and citizen.
This article examines the relationship between news media and violent extremism to explore the ethical issues emanating from it. It draws on news value theory and journalism ethics literature and ...analyzes data from individual and group interviews with 41 journalists and newsroom observations to highlight the ethical challenges of covering the Boko Haram insurgency. Findings suggest that journalists face dilemmas in content selection, source relationship, framing stories, and dealing with victims; and that terror reporting impacts on their personal safety and professional sustainability. The elements of newsworthiness push the media toward excessive reporting of extremism but journalism ethics plays restraining roles.
Background:
International research consistently shows evidence for an association between sensationalised and detailed media reporting, and suicidal behaviour.
Aim:
This study examined the quality of ...media reporting of suicide and adherence to media guidelines in Ireland.
Methods:
In accordance with the criteria outlined in the media guidelines for reporting suicide, 243 media articles were screened and analysed for quality of reporting of two high-profile cases of suicide and two cases of suicide that became high profile following a period of intense media coverage that occurred between September 2009 and December 2012.
Results:
A minority of articles breached the media guidelines in relation to sensationalised language (11.8%), placement of reports on the front page of the newspaper (9.5%), publishing of inappropriate photographs (4.2%) and mention of location of suicide (2.4%), while no articles disclosed the contents of a suicide note. However, in the majority of articles analysed, journalists did not refer to appropriate support services for people vulnerable to, and at risk of suicide (75.8%) or mention wider issues that are related to suicidal behaviour (53.8%). Overemphasis of community grief (48.3%) was also common. Nearly all articles (99.2%) breached at least one guideline and 58.9% of articles breached three or more guidelines.
Conclusion:
Overall, adherence to media guidelines on reporting suicide in Ireland improved in certain key areas from September 2009 until December 2012. Nonetheless, important challenges remain. Increased monitoring by media monitoring agencies, regulators and government departments is required. Implementation should be conducted using a pro-active approach and form part of the curriculum of journalists and editors. The inclusion of guidelines for the reporting of suicidal behaviour in press codes of conduct for journalists warrants consideration.
Since the U.S. 2016 presidential election, journalists and news organizations have been forced to confront shifting racial, social and political climates, and re-evaluate practices and norms. ...However, news coverage of racism is complex, especially because the conceptualization of racism in society is discordant, and the parameters of racism are heavily debated. News coverage can contribute to this debatability, specifically when it presents issues of racism with certain linguistic and topical features. In a content analysis of social media posts from six of the Facebook pages maintained by national broadcast and newspaper organizations, the present study explores contextual and linguistic representations of racism, and how social media users on Facebook engage with news posted by these organizations. Results suggest representations in news coverage signal a public debate about what is and is not racism. Coverage heavily emphasized prominent figures, while social media audiences amplified Trump’s presence in social networks.
Journalism ethics theorizing is increasingly preoccupied with identifying and articulating universal norms and standards for media systems across various cultures. This study offers an empirical ...contribution to this topic by examining the ethical orientations of journalists in 18 countries. Country-level, or ideological, factors, rather than individual-level variables, appear to have the greatest impact on journalists’ degrees of idealism and relativistic thinking. Findings affirm hierarchy-of-influences theories regarding news work. They also raise questions about the nature of universal standards that would constitute a cross-cultural journalism ethics theory and underscore concerns about the viability of Enlightenment assumptions to serve as universal journalism ethical norms.
Scholarship in literary journalism often focuses on matters of technique and style, and on the ethical challenges of immersion reporting. In some contexts, however, literary journalism may also take ...on a sense of moral purpose, as when reporters assert the importance of their interpretations, or readers attribute special meaning to a particular style of writing. The New Journalism of the 1960s and 1970s offers a revealing example of how magazine and book publishing markets and writer–editor relations inevitably shape journalists’ interpretations and lend them a sense of social significance. The New Journalism did not stand alone and apart from the larger profession, but took root within a network of writers, editors, and publishers, and grew out of a wider, ongoing debate over the nature of journalists’ interpretive responsibilities.
Rad daje prikaz anketnog istraživanja na 243 studenta preddiplomskog i diplomskog studija novinarstva na Fakultetu političkih znanosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu provedenog s ciljem uvida u stavove ...studenata o kontroverznim metodama u izvještavanju i najvažnijim etičkim problemima u suvremenom novinarstvu te uvida u njihovu etičku orijentaciju. Istraživanje je također imalo za cilj otkriti potencijalne razlike među studentima različitih razina studija (preddiplomska i diplomska razina), različitog radnog iskustva u medijima te između studenata novinarstva i novinara u Hrvatskoj (usporedba s rezultatima studije Worlds of Journalism Study). Rezultati ne pokazuju razlike između studenata preddiplomskog i diplomskog studija kao ni između onih s iskustvom i bez iskustva rada u medijima u pogledu njihova stava prema korištenju kontroverznih metoda u izvještavanju, ali su pronađene razlike između studenata novinarstva i novinara s obzirom na njihovu etičku orijentaciju. Studenti novinarstva navode otkrivanje identiteta (maloljetnika) i senzacionalizam kao najveće etičke probleme suvremenog novinarstva.
A survey among 243 undergraduate and graduate journalism students at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Croatia, was conducted to gain insight into their stances on the most important ethical problems in contemporary journalism, their ethical orientation and reasonings on the use of controversial methods in reporting. The research was set to explore the potential differences among students of different levels of study and working experience as well as between journalism students and journalists (comparison with the results of the “Worlds of Journalism Study” for Croatia).The results show no significant differences between undergraduate and graduate students nor between those with and without experience in the media regarding their stances towards the use of controversial methods in reporting, but differences were found between journalism students and journalists regarding their ethical orientation. Journalism students find identity disclosure and sensationalism to be the most severe ethical issues of contemporary journalism.
Hackers have a double relevance with regard to the transformation of the journalistic field: first, they have established themselves as journalistic actors, even if their work may sometimes seem ...unfamiliar. Second, hackers have not only become important sources for information but they are also a topic of public interest in a data-driven society increasingly threatened by surveillance capitalism. This paper critically discusses the role of hackers as news sources by analyzing the “stalkerware” investigation carried out by the online news magazine Motherboard. Drawing from field theory and boundary work, the article sheds light on how hackers exert an increasing influence on journalism, its practices, epistemologies, and ethics, resulting in an increasing hybridization of journalism. Journalism has become a dynamic space, in which hackers are not only becoming relevant actors in the journalism field, but they often represent the only sources journalists have to shed light on wrongdoings. Hence, hackers are increasingly defining the conditions under which journalism is carried out, both in terms of its practices as well as in its normative framework.
This article provides insight into the “brown envelope journalism” in the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville). Through in-depth interviews with journalists from four major Congolese news outlets, ...this research reveals how financial difficulties result in reporters justifying their violations of journalism ethics and standards. While two news outlets accept bribes to compensate for their precarious financial situation, two other news organizations pretend that they oppose envelope journalism although this research shows that their reporters also secretly accept bribes.
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