Matakuliah : O0394 – Teknik Reportase dan News Caster
Tahun
: 2010
Ethics, Media, and Society – in
Practice
Pertemuan 11 – 12
Learning Objectives
This material will discuss global journalistic ethical
practices that are conducted based on guidelines
covered in the previous part, Ethics and Media. It is
expected that the discussion will broaden the
students’ understanding on journalistic ethics in
global practices.
3
Why Bother with Ethical Codes? (1/5)
THE PROS
Some regard ethical codes as vehicles of
professionalization;
A means of professional education;
Instruments of consciousness-raising and as
deliberate attempts by journalists to regulate the
media and ward off legislation restricting their
activities;
4
Why Bother with Ethical Codes? (2/5)
THE CONTRAS
Some argue that codes inherently restrict press freedom by
encouraging certain patterns of behavior and condemning
others;
The media are more effectively regulated by the market;
Critics also claim that only few journalists are aware of the
content of codes particularly when the codes are constantly
being changed.
For example: The original Press Complaints Commission’s
code of 1991 has been amended 16 times.
5
Why Bother with Ethical Codes? (3/5)
Some values are in codes throughout the world (Grevisse
1999, Laitila 1993):
Fairness;
The separation of facts and opinion;
The need for accuracy linked with the responsibility to
correct errors; the deliberate distortion & suppression of
information are condemned;
Upholding journalists’ responsibility to guard citizens’ right
to freedom of expression;
6
Why Bother with Ethical Codes? (4/5)
 Maintaining confidentiality of sources;
 Recognizing a duty to defend the dignity and independence
of the profession;
 Protecting people’s right to privacy;
 Respecting and seeking after truth;
 Struggling against censorship;
 Avoiding discrimination on grounds of race, sexual
orientation, gender, language, religion or political opinions;
and avoiding conflicts of interest.
7
Why Bother with Ethical Codes? (5/5)
There are range of steps you can take to exploit the
‘media accountability systems’ (Claude-Jean Bertrand,
1999):
Letters to the editors;
Boyscotts;
Complain to relevant bodies; and
Join campaigning groups such as the Campaign for
Press and Broadcasting Freedom.
8
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (1/10)
There are 3 (three) main types of interview:
1. On-the-record: the source trusts the journalist to report
what is said fairly and accurately;
2. Off-the-record: the source prefers not to be disclosed
because of its sensitive nature. Off-the record
agreement leaves the journalist free to secure the same
information from an alternative. This type of information
can benefit the journalist and the source.
9
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (2/10)
3. Unattributed/ background comments
Reports can carry quotes from the interviews but
attribution is vague to hide identities on particularly
sensitive subjects. If journalists are to carry
unattributed quotes, then the source should be already
known as reliable and they should be identified as
clearly as possible without revealing their identities.
10
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (3/10)
Guardian Editor, Alan Rusbridger, on July 15 2000,
announced a “stricter code” on using anonymous
pejorative quotes:
“And we will encourage reporters to be as specific as
possible about the source of any anonymous
quotation.”
11
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (4/10)
Confidential Source? – A Further Dilemma
Some supporting statements on confidential source:
 John Wilson (1996: 86), former editorial policy
controller of BBC:
“One of the few accepted absolutes in journalism
is that confidential sources must be protected.”
12
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (5/10)
 Under Section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act
1981, courts have the right to demand that
journalists reveal sources if ‘disclosure is
necessary in the interests of justice or national
security or for the prevention of disorder or crime.’
13
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (6/10)
 Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984, police
investigating a ‘serious offense’ can obtain an order
requiring the journalists to submit evidence considered
useful to the court. The evidence can include
unpublished photographs, computer files and notes.
With misfortunes, some journalists finally risked fines
and imprisonment to preserve confidential sources.
14
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (7/10)
Allowing the Source Access to the Report Before
Publication/ Broadcasting
There are 3 (three) different approaches on this issue:
1.Disallowing the source access to the report or script
before it appears:
2.Allowing the copy or script to go through untouched
with the risk of the source may want minor if not major
changes;
15
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (8/10)
As Chris Frost (op. cit.: 76) argues strongly: “Showing
the copy to an interviewee is a tacit admission that the
piece is Public Relations and not journalism.”
3.Collaborative action between the journalists and the
source. The final piece then becomes the product of a
joint exercise between journalist and the source.
16
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (9/10)
American Janet Malcom (1991:1) in the Journalist and the Murderer
comments: “Every relationship with a source is exploitative and
‘morally indefensible’.
BUT
Roger Graef challenges Malcom, by advocating a collaborative
relationship with sources. As he comments: “The notion of any kind
of collaboration evokes a kind of journalistic capitulation that … but
in our experience, the sense of collaboration allows the participants
to keep their dignity not only during filming but crucially during and
after transmission.”
17
Journalists-Source Relationship – a
Dilemma (10/10)
Does the Internet Throw up New Ethical Issues?
The interactivity of the internet means journalists can
have much closer contact with their audience and
sources.
As commentator such as Jon Katz (1997):
“The internet is transforming the journalist-audience
relationship: from being an unquestioned expert, the
journalist now becomes simply a facilitator of debate.”18
The Ethics of Unpleasant Coverage (1/4)
Privacy
Is a Privacy Law Necessary to Control the Media?
According to Mathew Kieran (2000: 163):
“Privacy concerns certain areas of our lives over
which we exercise autonomous control and which
it is not the business or right of others to concern
themselves with unless we so choose.”
19
The Ethics of Unpleasant Coverage (2/4)
Supposedly, privacy is regarded as a fundamental human right
but how to protect privacy?
The French elite believes in the importance of protecting
privacy;
The Constitutions of Italy and Belgium also protect citizen’s
rights to privacy;
In the United States, Australia, and Canada there are statutory
defenses to privacy;
But in Britain, there is concern over precisely defining ‘privacy’
and ‘public interest’.
20
The Ethics of Unpleasant Coverage (3/4)
Subterfuge (Deception)
The Codes (ITC, BSC, PCC) agreed in stressing that
subterfuge is only legitimate in the public interest and
when the material cannot be obtained by other means.
 Under the ITC code, the approval of the broadcasting
company’s senior program executive is required before
commencing secret filming.
21
The Ethics of Unpleasant Coverage (4/4)
‘Deathknocks’ (Interviewing of relatives/ friends after
someone’s death)
The momentum of journalists respecting the privacy of
individuals began on the massacre of 16 children and a
teacher in a primary school in Dunblane in 1996. As John
Taylor commented (1998: 105):
“The response was also marked by a new, rare respect for
privacy: the media voluntarily stopped invading the privacy
of people whose their loved ones died in the massacre…”22
Constraints on Journalists (1/8)
Murder
The ultimate constraint the journalists will likely
face is murder which can be in the form of: threats
when covering demonstrations, intimidation,
anonymous phone calls, and open aggression.
Therefore, journalists on dangerous assignments
should be encouraged to work in pairs or three.
23
Constraints on Journalists (2/8)
Legal Constraints
Many laws exist to restraint (control) or, at least,
restrict the media. For example a new antiterrorism legislation that provoked concerns
amongst civil right campaigners and journalists
and the journalists covering direct action could be
caught or carrying a five-year sentence.
24
Constraints on Journalists (3/8)
Advertisers
Pressures from advertisers can be obvious as when
they seek to influence editorial policy or withdraw
support after critical coverage. As Curran and Seaton
(1991: 38) argue that the emergence of an
advertisement-based, mass-selling newspaper industry
in the latter half of the 19th century helped control the
development of a radical, trade union-based press.
25
Constraints on Journalists (4/8)
Pressure from proprietors
Newspapers journalists have also faced considerable
pressures from their proprietors. Editorial have been rewritten, lay-outs have been changed.
As Anthony Bevins (1990: 15) argue:
“… dissident reporters who do not follow the
proprietor’s line will suffer professional death.”
26
Constraints on Journalists (5/8)
New Pressure from the Police
Harry Blackwood, editor of the Hartlepool Mail,
commented:
“Many police officers don’t want newspapers to
report crime as they say it will increase the fear of
crime. May be the police officers would like to
consider how the victims feel when they are attacked
by the criminals…”
27
Constraints on Journalists (6/8)
Secret Service
Journalists are used by people from Secret Service to
help them accomplish their mission.
For example:
John Simpson, of BBC world affairs editor (1999: 296-
7) describes how he was once approached by a ‘man
from M15’ to make him broadcast something favorable
for the agent.
28
Constraints on Journalists (7/8)
How Journalists might respond to those challenges,
temptations, and threats?

Preparing certain strategies on whether to publish or not to
publish the news;

Collaborating with other journalists to protest the threat to
press freedom;
For example: 150 fellow journalists signed up a half-page
advertisement in the Times on 3 May 2000 protesting the
press freedom on publication of the assassination of Colonel
Gaddafi of Libya.
29
Constraints on Journalists (8/8)
 Utilizing whistle-blowers to expose and break through the
constraints on coverage.
For example:
Cathy Massiter, an M15 F Branch Officer, bravely revealed to
Channel 4’s 20/20 how surveillance of Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament activists had been stepped up in the early 1980s.
 Obtaining support from the Government on Freedom of Press.
For example: The US First Amendment guarantees press
freedom.
30
Closing
By understanding the ethical related coverage, the
constraints and how to handle all the constraints that
possibly faced by the journalists, it is expected that
students will be ready to prepare themselves to
challenge a set of activities during the news
production.
31