ETHICS & THE MEDIA

Why study ethics?  

The consequences of ethical behavior are profound. Although unethical behavior may sometimes seem to help people rise more quickly in their fields, people with a strong sense of ethics have more stable, stronger, longer-lasting careers.  In other words, there are practical reasons to be ethical, whether or not you believe in universal laws of right and wrong.

You need to be prepared for ethical challenges in your job. Professionals who do not follow professional ethics, or who witlessly breach ethical codes, are often fired or demoted. Sometimes editors or managers will ask subordinates to do things that are unethical to test them or to find an office scapegoat. In either case, the practical approach (question the order, discuss the order in the light of ethical codes (see below), get the order in writing, protest to a supervisor, or to begin looking for other jobs) is usually sufficient.

Some would argue that ethics cannot be taught — a person is either ethical or is not ethical.  But that view is uninformed.   Although a sense of ethics may vary in strength from person to person, a complete lack of ethics or compassion is rare and is usually considered to be a symptom of  mental illness.

The personal sense of ethics is very much like the desire for freedom. Nearly everyone has some desire to be free. In a university class we don’t learn freedom per se, but we do try to understand the legal systems that protect personal freedom while balancing the interests of others. Similarly, we don’t learn to acquire a sense of ethics, but rather, we try to understand ethical systems and principles for coping with challenges on a personal and professional basis. We have to read the moral compass and find the obstacles before plotting a course.

Ethics involves what is right, equitable, fair, just, dutiful and responsible.

Although some people will scoff at the idea of media  ethics, in fact, ethical  practice is as important in media and communication professions as it is in any other walk of life with high levels of public impact.  Journalists, advertising executives, filmmakers, public relations practitioners, and others in the media are expected to be ethical. They have professional obligations which they would ignore only at great peril to others as well as themselves.

Many professions have codes of ethics. For example, the American Library Association‘s Code of Ethics, the American Medical Association‘s Code of Medical Ethics and the American Bar Association‘s  Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Others, including dentistry, social work, education, government service, engineering, real estate, architecture, banking, insurance, and human resources management, also have codes of ethics.  

 

Ethics and mass media

Media ethics are often distinguished from the ethics of other professions, in part because the media have a broader responsibility than most professions, as noted by Fred Brown in “Media Ethics” published by the Sigma Delta Chi / SPJ Foundation:  The principle of open communication has a unique standing in American society. In that context, ethical reasoning requires a considerably different approach than is common in professional ethics… In a democratic society, the audience is expected to process a much broader range of information than in other cultures. So, when we speak of journalism ethics, then, we speak not of regulated behavior, the phenomenon most familiar to us as we look at the activities of doctors, lawyers, plumbers and others who follow professional codes. 

Also, US media have no direct supervision from certifying boards and associations, unlike medicine and other professions. Again, according to Brown: This absence of professional discipline makes journalistic codes, including the SPJ Code of Ethics, more advisory than mandatory. That is in sharp contrast to the enforceable codes of the legal and medical professions, and a source of concern to those who see a need to “control” anyone who possesses the kind of power the media are perceived to have. But it also means that journalists, individually and collectively, have a greater need for an articulated sense of ethics than do the more regulated professions.  

To understand media ethics, we need to study: 

1. Ethics as a general area of philosophy  — Here were are mostly concerned with normative ethics, that is, the study of standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions.  These areas of ethics involve  ethical traditions, religious traditions and moral principles.  

2. Professional ethics for US media include codes of the  Society of Professional Journalists, the American Advertising Federation, the Radio TV News Directors Association, and the Public Relations Society of America as well as individual media organizations.

3.  Professional codes for EU media are encouraged for associated NGOs through the August, 2025  Media Freedom Act and based on global professional codes of ethics such as the ”Bordeaux Declaration” of 1956 by the International Federation of Journalists (an NGO member of UNESCO).

4. Information & Communications Technology (ICT) ethics  include global standards of social responsibility. Ethics here are increasingly  important in a world where information technologies are vehicles for psychological warfare between cultures, ideologies and nations. International law prohibits members of the media from complicity in crimes against humanity such as encouraging genocide.  Principles of media responsibility have been described by the Hutchins commission (1947),  MacBride Report (1980) and the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (2000).

Ethical standards for artificial intelligence, for example, are widely discussed and may lead to vast regulatory differences between the EU and the US.  Rejecting international cooperation as well as state level regulation, the Trump White House said in December, 2025:  “We remain in the earliest days of this technological revolution and are in a race with adversaries for supremacy within it. To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation.”

5. European Union (EU) regulatory frameworks emphasizing ethical approaches to digital media respecting personal privacy, human dignity, and duty of care. Key features are civil and criminal penalties for hate speech and the right to be forgotten. Overall, the EU’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act are designed to preserve the sovereignty of European media law and to reject external control either from technology companies or the Trump administration.

Ethical issues from personal to global 

When we consider the five major ethical traditions (See Chapter 2.2, next), we may also observe that each has specific applications to media professions.

  • Virtue ethics applies to the veracity and integrity of individuals and media companies;
  • Utilitarian ethics (the greatest good for the greatest number) may support the idea that individuals and media companies should work in service to democracy;
  • Duty ethics supports the idea of individuals and media companies having a duty to seek the truth and reporting it
  • Justice ethics supports a socially conscious editorial agenda, for example, Joseph Pulitzer’s admonition that journalists “never lack sympathy with the poor.”
  • Bioethics applies to the overall media environment and global standards of social responsibility.

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