Investigative journalism seeks to expose unethical, immoral and illegal behavior by government officials, politicians aswell as private citizens. This genre of journalism has the potential to make a worthwhile contribution to society bydrawing attention to failures within society’s systems of regulation and to the ways in which those systems can becircumvented by the rich, the powerful and the corrupt. Investigative reporting however not only demands the highest standards of accuracy, but also delivers more ethical dilemmas on a daily basis than almost any other form of journalism.
The word “ethics” when associated with journalism practice has elicited various definitions including a set of principles and norms that, at least to some degree, guided journalistic practice, or a way of studying morality which allows decisions to be made when individuals face specific cases of moral dilemma.
Journalists, in the course of their duty, deal with the choice between what is moral or immoral if published. They even have to deal with moral and legal issues regarding how they obtain information. The information that investigative journalists seek—that which touch on corruption, immoral behavior and other vice are always private or hidden by the power elite and as such journalists are forced to dig deep to obtain information. Indeed, investigative journalism’s key controversy has centered on how journalists obtained information.
Ethical issues surrounding news gathering techniques such as concealed recording or telephone hacking, protection of sources and invading the privacy of people by the Weekly Citizen and the Sunday Nation are the key ethics of investigative journalism.
The tabloids are considered to lower the standards of idealized journalism because they focus too much on gossip and private lives of celebrities. Further, the view that tabloids blatantly disregard journalism ethics in their investigative reporting as was the previous sting techniques of the News of the World that involved the use fake sheikhs to get exclusive stories has further helped give tabloids a bad name and the feeling that popular press undermines the ideal functions of mass media in liberal democracies.
Human beings are bound to tell the truth even if that action would harm others but in so seeking to tell the truth, human beings ought to respect each other so as not to treat others as a means to justify the end. Journalists working for the tabloid and quality newspapers do not necessarily play alongside journalism ethics. They break them from time to time depending on the news stories they are investigating and depending on the situations such as difficulty in getting official documents to back the story.
The word “ethics” when associated with journalism practice has elicited various definitions including a set of principles and norms that, at least to some degree, guided journalistic practice, or a way of studying morality which allows decisions to be made when individuals face specific cases of moral dilemma.
Journalists, in the course of their duty, deal with the choice between what is moral or immoral if published. They even have to deal with moral and legal issues regarding how they obtain information. The information that investigative journalists seek—that which touch on corruption, immoral behavior and other vice are always private or hidden by the power elite and as such journalists are forced to dig deep to obtain information. Indeed, investigative journalism’s key controversy has centered on how journalists obtained information.
Ethical issues surrounding news gathering techniques such as concealed recording or telephone hacking, protection of sources and invading the privacy of people by the Weekly Citizen and the Sunday Nation are the key ethics of investigative journalism.
The tabloids are considered to lower the standards of idealized journalism because they focus too much on gossip and private lives of celebrities. Further, the view that tabloids blatantly disregard journalism ethics in their investigative reporting as was the previous sting techniques of the News of the World that involved the use fake sheikhs to get exclusive stories has further helped give tabloids a bad name and the feeling that popular press undermines the ideal functions of mass media in liberal democracies.
Human beings are bound to tell the truth even if that action would harm others but in so seeking to tell the truth, human beings ought to respect each other so as not to treat others as a means to justify the end. Journalists working for the tabloid and quality newspapers do not necessarily play alongside journalism ethics. They break them from time to time depending on the news stories they are investigating and depending on the situations such as difficulty in getting official documents to back the story.
No comments:
Post a Comment