Code of Ethics: An Online Focus

Ethics guide how one lives his or her life.  People use ethics when deciding their social/relationship decisions, in the treatment of animals, on the job & many other scenarios.  Although ethics is a positive force in those fields, I believe it would be unethical to have a “code of ethics” for online media because they can report on the topic of their choice without having to worry about disgracing their association or company, the existing codes talk about using reliable sources but those sources aren’t always reliable & online journalism is more personal & thus the reader knows the expressed views are of the writer not hidden views found in print journalism.

In college, aspiring journalists are taught to be objective & to adopt a personal code of ethics.  They are also encouraged to join a type of journalistic association.  Once one joins an association, they must adhere to that association’s code of ethics.  If what the journalist wants to report on goes against the code, the journalist must suffer the consequences for their actions.  In the case of the PRSA, they will get kicked out of the association.  In contrast, bloggers & others who use the online media to “report” on stories, don’t have to follow a guide.  They can say what they want to say without having to worry about an editor looking over their shoulder & critiquing their work.  Since these bloggers aren’t getting paid, the aspect of not having a code to follow allows bloggers to report on the stories that traditional media refuse to or simply cannot cover.  The ability of online media to be able to publish these stories drive more people to look to the Internet for their news.  The blogger’s allegiance is to themselves & to the reader, not a bunch of shareholders.

Traditional media is known for using “reliable” sources.  But if a reliable source such as the President of the United States is lying, how would anyone know unless one did a background check?  Many traditional media outlets would take what the President said as truth, as with any other government official, doctor or a “specialist”.  On the other hand, online media have the time & resources to do through fact-checking.  Take the controversy over the weapons of mass destruction.  Weapons specialists were saying that there was through evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding WMDs in Iraq.  Although the United Nations weapons inspectors found no evidence of these weapons, the media still sided with the government “officials” in saying that there was.  No one in the mainstream media questioned the validity of the sources except the two reporters from Knight Ridder, a smaller-scale publication.  Bloggers were already questioning the “official” sources.