The list of ethical challenges facing journalism today is a long one. How can we get at the truth when flooded by unverified information? How do we maintain integrity as new business models and partnerships become necessary for survival? How should journalists behave on social media platforms?

onMedia put a few questions on changing journalism ethics to Steve Buttry, an American journalist, editor and educator who writes and speaks frequently on the topic.

Should ethical standards in journalism evolve along with changes in the profession or are they immutable? 

Some values are certainly immutable, but ethical standards are more specific than the underlying values. And even values change over time. For instance, objectivity didn’t start as an important value of journalism, but was an economic response to serving news organizations of varying political views in a time when having a viewpoint was regarded as important. So the notion that all of our values are timeless is exaggerated anyway.

Take the general underlying value that journalists should attribute our sources of information. Perhaps that is immutable. But the specific standards of how we apply the value need to be updated to respond to such matters as technology (the ability to link to our sources of information) and practice (excessive use of unnamed sources and weak explanations of why reporters grant confidentiality to sources).

What is driving this need for change? 

Steve Buttry

Technology certainly is driving some of the change. In addition to the linking issue I’ve cited, public discussions on social media have presented ethical issues we need to address. The government’s ability to snoop has created ethical issues relating to unnamed sources and our ability to keep promises of confidentiality. The news cycle raises new issues relating to our long-held principles of fairness: Allegation and response often come in separate updates of a running story, for instance. The marketplace also presents new twists to old issues: The value of independence is a long-held value in journalism ethics, and new developments such as native advertising present new situations in which to apply that value.

We also can update our standards as people develop better practices independently of technology. A checklist is not a technological development, but it is the best system ever developed to prevent errors, so effective that it is required for such high-pressure professionals as surgeons and pilots. Well, when Craig Silverman [of the corrections blog Regret the Error] started advocating accuracy checklists for journalists, that wasn’t a technological development or a marketplace change. It was just a smart journalist calling us to raise our standards in a way we hadn’t thought of before. But he’s right, and we should require and teach the consistent use of checklists.

Can you give an example of how ethics should evolve in the context of technological developments?

Linking is a perfect example. Attribution has never been a value that journalists practiced consistently. Some attributed vaguely, especially if the competition had beaten them, either attributing to “media reports” or using passive voice, such as “was reported.” So the very fact that we can link now presents ethical choices and debates: Should we require linking in ethics codes or just encourage it in practice? My view is that ethical codes should say that journalists should link to their digital sources. I was pleased to see the New York Times address this, even if they did it as a matter of style, rather than ethics. And you should embed actual original materials (tweets, videos, documents) when possible, rather than merely quoting from them.

While you can’t link to your unnamed sources, technology presents important issues there, too. Ethics codes say we should keep promises of confidentiality, but that’s a technology issue today, too. If you grant confidentiality to a source, how do you protect that? Using encryption software, “burner” cellphones and other technology measures?

Are considerations like objectivity and fairness now considered outdated?

The journalist who is practicing objectivity still exercises opinions several times on every story. You decide that this story is more worthy of your time. Then you decide on the sources you will interview for the story. Then you decide which facts you gather belong in the story and which won’t make the story. And which fact(s) will lead the story, and which words you use to tell the story. We think of ourselves as being objective throughout the process, and we call these “news judgments,” rather than opinions.

Fairness has its flaws, too, because we started equating fairness with balance, which sometimes abdicated our obligation to seek the truth and report it. Instead of actually reporting the truth, we balanced conflicting statements in the name of fairness, sometimes publishing statements we knew were lies and failing to debunk them sufficiently or at all.

I don’t dismiss the value of neutrality (which I prefer to “objectivity,” because we aren’t objects; we’re people). And I do think we should be fair. But I think some of our practices in the name of these old values need re-examination, and I’m pleased that we are discussing these values and how to apply them.

What has the rise of social media had on thinking about journalistic ethics?

Let’s take two examples of ways that social media has presented ethical challenges: Verification of facts and expression of personal opinions.

Verifying information we heard from the community has always been an important challenge for journalists. You get an anonymous tip over the phone or you get a tip from a trusted source and you don’t publish it right away; you get to work trying to learn whether it’s true. Social media is another important source of tips for journalists. But the tips are right out there in public (as many rumors we chase have always been), and they have this retweet button that lets us add our credibility to the tips and rumors. So we need to learn how to join the social media conversation and still apply our standards of verification and accuracy.

Opinions have never been inherently bad journalism. As I noted, journalism was largely opinionated before the ethic of objectivity developed. And even in the era of objectivity, we had editorial writers, cartoonists and columnists who were still expected to express their opinions. And, of course, in our newsrooms and in bars and private conversations, even the so-called objective journalists were pretty free with their personal opinions, even about matters they covered. Sometimes journalists got in trouble for expressing these opinions, but usually the conversations were private, among colleagues, family and friends, so no one got in trouble. Social media feel like a similar conversation, but the setting is more public.

I don’t think news organizations are in agreement in how to address these social media issues, but I think we’re having some good conversations about the issues, and providing better guidance than we were a few years ago.

How do you ensure good journalism ethics are actually followed by journalists? Publish a code?

I think ethics codes are helpful, but good conversations about journalism are more helpful and more important. I have been involved in six notable efforts to improve ethical guidance for journalists. I think they show the variety of both the issues we face and the guidance we need.

Two were efforts to provide overall codes for journalists to follow, the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics and Poynter’s Guiding Principles for the Journalist. I think both updates were helpful, but neither went as far as I would have liked (both, for instance, failed to address linking). The Radio Television Digital News Association also is working to update its ethics code.

Three other efforts took narrow slices of journalism ethics, rather than trying to update a whole code, and provided detailed advice in that particular area:

• Rules of the Road by J-Lab, examining ethics of hyperlocal news.
• Telling the Truth and Nothing But, a joint effort by several journalism organizations addressing plagiarism and fabrication.
• The Verification Handbook, produced by the European Journalism Centre.

In addition the Online News Association is working on a project to produce building blocks for news organizations to produce their own ethics codes, reflecting their values and standards. We expect that project to be finished later this spring.

In general, how do you feel that the profession is doing these days when it comes to ethics?

I’m pleased that we have such a robust discussion of ethics in journalism, and I think the conversation will result in more ethical journalism. We have honest disagreements about some topics, and I don’t think that means the people who disagree with me are unethical. While I am pleased with this attention to ethics, the frequency with which we see shameful practices such as plagiarism and fabrication is discouraging. I was discouraged that [CNN host and Washington Post columnist] Fareed Zakaria’s employers were not more responsive to the thorough documentation of his extensive plagiarism.

All in all, I’d say journalists care a lot about ethics and generally make good ethical decisions. But I’d still like us to do better.

Steve Buttry has more than 40 years’ experience in the news business. He has been a reporter, editor and educator. He was formerly the Digital Transformation Editor for Digital First Media and today is the a visiting scholar at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. He blogs extensively on the media at The Buttry Diary. You can find him on Twitter at @stevebuttry. 

Photo credits: flickr/Dan Mason CC:BY-NC-SA; Steve Buttry; flickr/Toban B. CC:BY-NC) 

Interview by Kyle James, post edited by Kate Hairsine

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Whether journalists can be activists isn’t a new question, but it’s one that’s still being heatedly discussed– especially as digital technologies increasingly make it easy for anyone to create and publish media content. Some say journalism and activism are mutually exclusive because activism, by its very nature, compromises the journalism ethics of balance and neutrality.

Others argue activism is compatible with journalism as long as people are open about their agendas. One of these is Dan Gillmor, a columnist for the Guardian and a university professor who regularly teaches and writes about digital media. He is also the author of several books including Mediactive and We the Media (pdf), which popularized the concept of citizen journalism.

Ahead of a visit to Germany where he is speaking at DW’s Global Media Forum, Dan Gillmor spoke to onMedia about how he defines journalism, uncovering journalism in unexpected places and why he doesn’t trust Facebook.

Dan, is it still relevant today to ask “what is a journalist”?

I think the most important question is “what is journalism” as opposed to “who is a journalist”. A decade or more ago when we started seeing the rise of citizen journalists, it seemed clear we defined a journalist as someone who was getting paid to report. And I thought it was important to define what journalism was and to recognize an ecosystem that was, and still is, getting more diverse and more valuable.

What is journalism then?

It is both difficult and wonderful that we can include many things in the definition. We have to think of journalism as a process rather than an outcome; in the case of journalism, the outcome is information that is useful or entertaining or both. And I felt when we looked at the process instead, it made a much better definition. So I came up with a series of principles. If most of these principles were part of what I was seeing, then I was going to call it journalism.

What are these criteria?

The principles included being thorough, accurate, fair, independent – and here I mean independent thought, not independence of one’s employer and biases but rather looking for things that would challenge the basic assumptions – and transparency. Traditional journalists would probably agree with the first four principles. But because of the principle of transparency, I felt organizations like Human Rights Watch or the American Civil Liberties Union were doing something very close to journalism. After all, most organizations these days have a website and publish their reports, so they are creating media. That is a very exciting development because the ecosystem is getting more diverse.

You have said there is now journalism in places where we never would have discovered it. Can you me give an example?

I certainly wouldn’t have recognized a report from Human Rights Watch as journalism ten years ago – it was only when I realized what they were doing was following these principles that it occurred to me. The only principle I wasn’t sure about was that of ‘independence’ because Human Rights Watch have a certain agenda. But I don’t think their process twists things to meet this agenda. And even if it did, we credit some of the most twisted tabloids as journalism. Human Rights Watch is certainly more independent than tabloids such as Daily Mail and some agenda-driven television and radio (read here about how Human Rights Watch sees its place between journalism and advocacy).

You mean to say, if a political party writes articles transparently, they are producing journalism?

If you leave out the principles of ‘fair’ or ‘independent’, then it is not journalism by any standard. And I can’t image a political party being fair or independent. I would like all five principles to be present but many journalists are not thorough, so it’s a messy definition.

Some say Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist who broke the Snowden story of the NSA surveillance, is not a reporter, rather he is a liberties activist. What do you think?

I think that is partially mistaken. Greenwald is an advocate and a journalist. And there is a long and proud history of advocacy journalism in the United States, starting with the people we called the muckrakers over a century ago, who were very much trying to change society.

Here in Germany, journalists have criticized Greenwald because he has openly spoken of himself as being part of the activist community.

I guess I would ask your colleagues if they consider themselves part of the German community or part of the journalism community. We are all part of communities of various kinds and does that disqualify us from talking about what effects our communities and backgrounds have on us? No one would suggest we shouldn’t write about our country because we are citizens and therefore biased. Transparency solves a lot of these issues. Glenn is certainly independent in his thinking. He has shown himself able to attack people who have been his allies when they disappoint him. I admire him – I don’t agree with everything he writes – but I don’t know many people who do more homework or more digging.

Shouldn’t what Greenwald writes be considered as commentary rather than journalism?

Again, the lines between commentary and journalism are not always clear. The best traditional journalism gives a nuanced neutral presentation of the issues. But that is not always so clear-cut. From who we interview to the documents we look at and what we leave out, those are often agenda-driven decisions even if we don’t realize it. Our worldview is built into everything we do. What some people worry about is letting a worldview totally dominate and never giving time to people who don’t agree. The answer is, if you are a journalism organization and you want to be the only newspaper that someone looks at, you might decide you have an obligation to be as neutral as possible. I would argue in a world where it is increasingly possible to get information from a variety of sources, it is really the job of the audience to take for granted that there are many views and go looking for alternatives and confirmation. That feels to me than like a better answer.

If I was reading one newspaper every day about my community and that was the only source information I could get – which used to be the case – then I would hope the paper is trying to be independent and fair and thorough and accurate. But the more I would get to know the news, I would realize the owner has an agenda and the editor has an agenda. As such, the kind of neutral journalism that people talk about has never fully existed at all. It is a unicorn. And now that audiences have choices, I hope we can let the unicorn fade away.

At the recent International Journalism Festival in Perugia, you were part of a panel talking about the the Snowden effect. Have whistleblowers like Snowden and organizations like WikiLeaks changed the media landscape?

Sure. WikiLeaks is a journalistic entity. Much of what they do is important, and they are part of this ecosystem, and this is really key to me in thinking about information and media. So I am glad that they are around. Jillian York from the Electronic Frontier Foundation said during the panel, and I agree, that every news organization should have a WikiLeaks-like system to get things from leakers. There is software called SecureDrop, which lets anonymous contributors get documents to news organizations. WikiLeaks showed how things might be done. I don’t 100 percent support everything that they have done but I support them in the journalistic ecosystem very happily.

What does the journalism ecosystem of the future look like?

Journalism is part of a larger media ecosystem. We can see fairly clearly that the tools, the tactics and the techniques of journalism are changing rapidly. But there are some baseline assumptions: anyone with a computer (including those small computers we call mobile phones) using minimal tools can create media, and digital networks are pervasive. This second assumption means that this ecosystem is going to be incredibly diverse, ranging from giant state-supported or corporate media to the individual who witnesses an event, captures it and sends it to, for example, witness.org and helps get the word out. In the case of the people capturing the video, they are not journalists, but they are doing journalistic work.

There are a lot of digital tools such as Facebook or Google out there. Are you worried they will take over what we consume?

What Facebook has accomplished is remarkable from a technical and sociological point of view, and of course as a business. I hardly every use it though because I don’t trust them. They have fairly clear goals: to persuade people to do everything in ways that create data that can be sold or used, and to make Facebook an alternative internet. In some cases, where the data used to surf Facebook is free, Facebook is all people know. Facebook is the internet. Google’s dominance in advertising and their dominance in sheer power of their computing systems and what they know about people is stunning. You can avoid organizations such as Google and Facebook but most people don’t chose to. The search engine I use is DuckDuckGo because they don’t log my data.

Why is that important to you?

I value my privacy and there are principles to uphold. Privacy is essential for all of us. And I would rather pay for things than become the product, which is what these other search engines do. If you are not paying for something on the internet, then you are the product being sold on the internet. I prefer to pay.

How can you convince people to change their online behavior?

When someone says, you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide, that is a grotesque lie. In fact, we all have something that can be used against us. There are so many laws that no matter who you are, and what you have done, you have probably violated some law. The increasing moves to store everything we have said and done means people can go back and find something where you have technically broken that law. I don’t expect that to happen but that is how police states start. The other important thing to realize is that pervasive surveillance is harmful in larger ways. It makes people less willing to speak freely, less innovative, less willing to take the kinds of risks we need for dynamic societies. And it is contrary to any common-sense understanding of liberty. People who are being watched all the time are not free in any sense of the word. We have a lot to fear from 21st century Stasi states.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Interview by Steffen Leidel, edited by Kate Hairsine

Dan Gillmor is a professor of digital media literacy at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. As well as regularly writing for the Guardian, he is the author of several books, including Mediactive. You can follow Dan on Twitter @dangillmor

The Boston bombings sparked a media debate about when images are too horrific to publish

Every natural disaster, shooting, terror attack or war nowadays triggers a flood of horrifying and violent images. Gone are the days when only press photographers captured grief and terror with their lenses. In the digital age, bystanders can also snap shots of severed limbs and burnt corpses with their phones and cameras and upload them directly online.

How should media organizations handle such graphic images? When is it justifiable to publish photographs of the injured, the dying and the dead? Is it sensationalism to splash the bloodied body of Libya’s dead dictator Muammar Gaddafi across the front page of a newspaper? Is it appropriate to print photos of children killed by bombs in Syria? What about the images of victims, some with shredded limbs, that were published following the Boston marathon bomb blasts?

In her 2003 book looking at representations of atrocity, “Regarding the Pain of Others”, US author Susan Sontag wrote, “Harrowing photographs do not inevitably lose their power to shock. But they are not much help if the task is to understand. Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us.”

To help journalists decide whether to publish a certain images, German journalist Simon P. Balzert has composed a code of ethics for the use of graphic images. Balzert’s experience on the topic stems from research for his thesis which compared the publication of explicit images in German and Spanish newspapers (the result – Spanish newspapers published images of the dead and wounded significantly more often that German papers).

Simon P. Balzert

The guidelines though aren’t about presenting journalists with a fool-proof recipe for dealing with explicit images. “It always depends on the context,” Balzert said.

“Sometimes it is important to publish graphic photographs in order to document the horrors of war. For example, politicians may be interested in propagating the myth that it is a clean war,” he said.

• Before publication, journalists should ensure the photograph isn’t being printed solely for its shock or entertainment value, or for purely aesthetic reasons. Rather, the image should be chosen because it conveys pertinent and newsworthy information.
  Before publication, journalists should see if it is possible to avoid publishing the photograph by conveying the information contained in the image in another manner.
• Journalists should try to publish those images which are most emotionally appealing and least shocking. Instead of using a photo of a dead child, for example, publishing a picture of a child’s clothes covered with blood conveys the same message but is less upsetting.
• Journalist should apply the same standards to the use of graphic images of events in other countries as they would to the use of images from their own country. This avoids prejudices about other countries and other cultures.
• Journalists should avoid general rules such as “no photos of corpses”. Rather, they should decide which is the most suitable image on a case by case basis. Death and public discussion about death are part and parcel of an enlightened society and shouldn’t be inhibited by the media.
• Journalists should ensure that their publication sets aside sufficient space for an accompanying comment or text. If this space isn’t available then they shouldn’t publicize the image.
• Journalists should justify the use of a graphic image in an accompanying text (the picture caption doesn’t usually allow enough space for this). If possible, journalists should use an appropriate place in the publication to warn readers that a photo of a graphic nature follows.
• Journalists need to be aware that continued publication of graphic images lessens their overall effect. Therefore, they need to ensure that the publication of each explicit image is absolutely necessary.
• If journalists believe the publication of a graphic image is justified, they shouldn’t refrain from publishing the image because of concerns about whether it is appropriate for children or the audience’s reaction.
• In weighing up the pros and cons of an explicit image, journalists should concentrate on the context of the photograph and not allow themselves to be swayed by the codes of ethics of other media organizations.
• Journalists need to be aware that images on the printed page can leave a stronger impression than online images. They should consider publishing particular graphic images only online. That way readers can choose for themselves if they wish to view an image or not.
• Terrorist attacks often aim to maximize publicity. Journalists should therefore carefully weigh up the public benefits of publishing such images against the need for restraint.
• Journalists should be especially careful about publishing graphic images that were taken a while ago. When an image is no longer newsworthy, its publication is difficult to defend. Victims or their loved ones can suffer emotional distress and harm by suddenly being confronted with such images.
• Journalists should always consult with other editorial staff if they are in doubt about whether to publish certain images. However, journalists need to remember that they and their colleagues might have less inhibitions about seeing graphic photographs than average members of the public.
• Journalist need to consider the layout of the page when publishing graphic images. Readers tend to be more disapproving of an image’s publication when a headline or an advertisement focuses attention on the image.
• Journalists shouldn’t sensationalize explicit photos in any way. Instead of using a large front-page photograph, it is possible to use a smaller image elsewhere in the publication. In addition, instead of publishing a series of graphic photos, pick the most expressive and publish that one instead.
• Journalist should ensure victims are not identifiable, at the very least blurring victims’ faces. This especially applies to photos of the dead out of consideration for the deceased’s families and loved ones.
• Journalists should ensure that the image maintains the dignity of the person depicted. This is especially true if the person is identifiable.
• Images of an individual who has died by suicide should not be published.
• Journalists should be prepared to engage in a dialog with their readers and publish letters to the editor regarding controversial photographs.

Author: Steffen Leidel