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After reading through the long list of ethics and starndards...
I'm going to only agree to a certain extent -
Official or publicly well-known media outlets should follow these standards [which I hope they already do]... Things such as the blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc - you certainly hit a wall when it comes to applying idealistic concepts to a very broad and open technology where freedom of speech is CERTAINLY not hindered.
Most would agree though that without the strong presence of government intervention, organizations should have more leeway in applying rules and standards to the online community regarding issues of ethics of writing, journalism, reflections, etc.
[Or even have people having an easy way to express a just and sound article without biased information with absolute truths] -- but then of course, we live in an imperfect society with flaws to everything.
Since a lot of those Twitter-based news seem to have strong biased opinions as it is (from what I've personally read) - it's honestly hard to tell these groups of people to suddenly change their code of ethics or methodology of relaying news to people.
However, one thing I would strongly advocate in the article's long list of guidelines... Would be that privacy is one of those big 'concerns' that should be looked into. I certainly wouldn't want my name thrown out into the public without my consent. It's probably just me trying to convey my ideas that censorship needs to be placed where its actually needed and not where it's not needed.
We, the global community, have pushed for so many ridiculous mandates regarding the censorship of information, we really don't know how much information is blocked in regards of informing the community of news [whether it's locally or globally].
(Remember what happened with prohibition? Outlawed alcohol for the greater good, yes, but it backfired with the increase in organized crime and even violence). Just an analogy.
I'm saying that over-censorship [even general censorship] might be more bad than good.
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And as we dive deeper into the article...
"Seek Truth and Report It" and "Minimize Harm" - Doesn't both statements have a sense of contradictions towards each other?
Someone is going to get hurt if you seek for the absolute truth. For instance, reporting high-profile crimes and telling the global community will definitely hurt the person's reputation, whether they were considered 'good' or 'bad' - a truth that ruined a man's reputation.
I'm not saying it's bad, I just think that there's no way around it.
I might as well say it now, regardless of the contradictions, I think anyone with an adequate amount of sanity would just yell "THIS IS ALL COMMON SENSE!" - I would like to think so. These rules are very coherent and sound. Do we really have people who don't quite understand these codes of ethics?
I guess so, if it had to be written/typed down. Sad, I think.
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"Act Independently"
I agree for the most part specifically with this section just on the fact that I try to think individualistic as well when it comes to my thoughts and ideas.
Unbiasedness is promoted through selfless goals -- Seek the truth and nothing but the truth. [Granted that we are the greediest and most arrogant species roaming the surface of the earth].
— Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
Probably one of the more harder code of ethics to follow I would think. Especially when we all know advertisements is one of the biggest forms of revenue on the newspaper. And the said could be true for online news websites. Money, unfortunately, makes the world go round.
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"Be Accountable"
Considering that half of the information we obtain from the internet is as legit as it can get [insert sarcasm here], I honestly think people who relay news online via blogging, tweets, and so forth need to be accountable for any information they have put up for millions of internet users to potentially read.
I doubt it would be hard to apologize to people we've offended [if it were to happen] since we hold no personal/emotional/whatever lovey-dovey ties to the users that could potentially subscribed to a blog, news website, facebook fan page, etc.
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[Adding more later, muddled-up thought at the moment, ah!]
I think you make a very good point about it being difficult to apply the spj ethics to social networks because of the First Amendment. However, do you think this freedom is detrimental to the country's well-being at times because wrong information can be spread far and wide? Where is the line?
ReplyDeleteThis is very good!