[1] The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements by professional journalism associations and individual print, broadcast, and online news organizations.
While various codes may differ in the detail of their content and come from different cultural traditions, most share common elements that reflect Western values, including the principles of truthfulness, accuracy and fact-based communications, independence, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, respect for others and public accountability, as these apply to the gathering, editing and dissemination of newsworthy information to the public.
[10][11][12][13] The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved (in 1993) Resolution 1003 on the Ethics of Journalism, which recommends that journalists respect the presumption of innocence, in particular in cases that are still sub judice.
[16] Journalists are encouraged to maintain a degree of detachment from the religions, groups, or countries they are associated with, in order to minimize potential biases in their reporting.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) launched a global Ethical Journalism Initiative in 2008 aimed at strengthening awareness of these issues within professional bodies.
During the normal course of an assignment a reporter might go about gathering facts and details, conducting interviews, doing research and background checks, taking photos, and recording video and sound in search of justice.
This principle of limitation means that some weight needs to be given to the negative consequences of full disclosure, creating a practical and ethical dilemma.
The ombudsman is intended to mediate in conflicts stemming from internal or external pressures, to maintain accountability to the public for news reported, to foster self-criticism, and to encourage adherence to both codified and uncodified ethics and standards.
An alternative is a news council, an industry-wide self-regulation body, such as the Press Complaints Commission, set up by UK newspapers and magazines.
Such a body is capable of applying fairly consistent standards and of dealing with a higher volume of complaints but may not escape criticisms of being toothless.
[26] There are also some wider concerns as the media continues to change that the brevity of news reports and use of soundbites has reduced fidelity to the truth, and may contribute to a lack of needed context for public understanding.
[21][27] Advocacy journalists—a term of some debate even within the field of journalism—by definition tend to reject "objectivity", while at the same time maintaining many other common standards and ethics.
Civic journalism adopts a modified approach to objectivity where instead of being uninvolved spectators, the press is active in facilitating and encouraging public debate and examining claims and issues critically.
However, authors in this branch of journalism still maintain ethical criteria such as factual and historical accuracy as found in standard news reporting.
In countries without freedom of the press, the above-described standards of journalism are less relevant for reporters than rules surrounding censorship and avoiding politically sensitive or taboo topics.
In South Africa and the signatories to the ECHR, freedom of the press is also subject to specific enumerated limits prohibiting hate speech, propaganda for war, and defamation.
[citation needed] Accuracy is important as a core value and to maintain credibility, but especially in broadcast media, audience share often gravitates toward outlets that are reporting new information first.
The New York Times, for instance, tends to print longer, more detailed, less speculative, and more thoroughly verified pieces a day or two later than many other newspapers.
Here, viewers may switch channels at a moment's notice; with fierce competition for ratings and a large amount of airtime to fill, fresh material is very valuable.
Laws with regard to personal privacy, official secrets, and media disclosure of names and facts from criminal cases and civil lawsuits differ widely, and journalistic standards may vary accordingly.
In the United States, some news organizations feel that it is harmful to the democratic process to report exit poll results or preliminary returns while voting is still open.
News value is generally used to select stories for print, broadcast, blogs, and web portals, including those that focus on a specific topic.
Search engines, news aggregators, and social network feeds sometimes change the presentation of content depending on the consumer's expressed or inferred preferences or leanings.
[32] Audiences have different reactions to depictions of violence, nudity, coarse language, or to people in any other situation that is unacceptable to or stigmatized by the local culture or laws (such as the consumption of alcohol, homosexuality, illegal drug use, scatological images, etc.).
When certain distasteful or shocking material is considered important to the story, there are a variety of common methods for mitigating negative audience reaction.
There is often considerable controversy over these techniques, especially concern that obscuring or not reporting certain facts or details is self-censorship, which compromises objectivity and fidelity to the truth, and does not serve the public interest.
Some argue that "sanitizing" the depiction of war influences public opinion about the merits of continuing to fight, and about the policies or circumstances that precipitated the conflict.
War correspondent Edward Behr recounts the story of a reporter during the Congo Crisis who walked into a crowd of Belgian evacuees and shouted, "Anyone here been raped and speaks English?
Investigative journalism is largely an information-gathering exercise, looking for facts that are not easy to obtain by simple requests and searches, or are actively being concealed, suppressed or distorted.
From highly sensitive issues of national security to everyday questions such as accepting a dinner from a source, putting a bumper sticker on one's car, publishing a personal opinion blog, a journalist must make decisions taking into account things such as the public's right to know, potential threats, reprisals and intimidations of all kinds, personal integrity, conflicts between editors, reporters and publishers or management, and many other such conundra.