Ethically Responsible and Irresponsible News Reporting
Abstract
In their work journalists have to balance between the obligation to report real news based on verified facts and to do this in an ethical manner avoiding unnecessary intrusions into one’s private space. The main ethical issue is to keep the report true even if there exists some external pressure for presenting information in a different way. Journalists should carefully evaluate the benefits and the damage which their reports can cause. They also should carefully choose reliable sources and protect their privacy in case it has been agreed upon before. This paper investigates the key components of ethical decision-making in news reporting.
Journalism's Ethical Responsibility
Journalism’s main ethical responsibility to the society is to report what has really happened and to inform the public on the on-going events. A journalist is obliged to deliver objective information in the relevant issues without trying to satisfy someone’s demand or interests and not trying to reflect someone’s opinion on the issue. News reporting is just about stating facts and allowing the public make further conclusions relying on those facts.
In terms of ethical or unethical news reporting one can distinguish between responsible and irresponsible reporting. Though the difference between these two notions seems obvious, it is not always the case. The truth is that irresponsible reporting does not include exclusively “fake” news which is fabricated. “Irresponsible” means unethical, i.e. breaking some ethical norms. Using such definition, one can easily guess that since there are a lot of parties involved in any event, even an objective picture can hurt someone’s feelings or damage someone’s interests and thus be unethical. A journalist always has to balance between the need to report the news objectively and not to invade one’s privacy or not to yield to political or other pressure (Englehardt, 2009).
A great and famous example of responsible news reporting is Watergate scandal which discovered the fraudulent activity initiated and supported by Pr. Nixon who lost his presidential status as a result of this scandal. Despite the fact that very influential parties were involved in the conflict and such publications could have had negative impact on journalists’ careers, they did not give up on this story and depicted truthful facts about the problem in their reports (Christians, Fackler, Woods, Kreshel, & McKee, 2016). All data which they used in their reports was validated and the society benefited from their job. On the contrary, one can see numerous examples of irresponsible news reporting especially in regard to the recent elections in the US. Most media were biased towards a particular candidate and to damage the reputation of the rival published unverified reports which were later disclaimed. One of such media is CNN who referred to unverified report on Donald Trump’s relations with Russian security service. Such news reporting is irresponsible because it damages the reputation without feasible grounds and inspires causes anxiety among the audience.
Cases of Justified Deception in Journalism
For deception to be to some extent acceptable in journalism it should be …
