Todd's Journalism Ethics

Now that I have been given the task of personally crafting a set of ethical considerations and guidelines for myself as a journalist, I believe that my foundation shall be built on the notions of balance. Balance by definition means an equal distribution of weight or amount; mental steadiness. It seems to me that the whole existence of a journalist is a constant balancing act: balancing personal biases between those of the audience you write for and the organization you write for; balancing the multiplicity of perspectives and narratives that are present in every story; balancing the need to obtain and illuminate ‘important’ information (by personal standards) with the public’s interest/need to know that information, all the while considering the negative outcomes that are inherent in publishing such information; etc. With these considerations in mind the notion of objectivity becomes more tangible: as a journalist, if I persistently conduct myself in a way that utilizes these notions of balance the resulting work I produce will never stray into my own or other biases, nor never position one side of the story’s facts/perspectives over another. Though balance in itself provides enough of a guiding principle to conduct oneself ethically in journalism, I find it is useful to further root it within the philosophical paradigms of Aristotle’s Golden Mean and the Buddhist Middle Path. Both the Golden Mean and the Middle Path extol a need to dynamically adjust to any situation by using moderation and balancing oneself in between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. When writing a piece on a specific person or group, the application of the Golden Mean and the Middle Path directs the story in the most objective and fair ways: a journalist should neither intentionally lampoon nor lavish with admiration/praise a subject, they should always allow for these varied perspectives to exist in context with each other and thus let the reader draw their own conclusions. Other than not fabricating facts/pieces of a story, conducting journalism in illegal manners, and intentionally biasing your work, I don’t believe there can be any hard-and-fast rules in journalism – as each case presents a unique set of circumstances and characters. In this light Kant’s Categorical Imperative is of little relevance. I find the ethical calculator that is the Potter Box an incredibly useful resource: a journalist should take time to consider the situation they’re trying to portray (what’s most important and why), they should know already what values they have as a journalist (i.e. not suppressing public information), what guiding ethical principles they work by (in this case, the Golden Mean and the Middle Path), and what loyalties they wish to serve (i.e. the general readership, the subjects involved in the story, etc.). Though I don’t think that a journalist should sit down and carefully run every tidbit through the Potter Box, I do think that the framework can be applied and utilized at crucial points in creating a story – before the piece has begun, in the midst of investigation, while writing and a final assessment after having written the piece. In this manner, a journalist who always makes these considerations can step back and comparatively analyze their works to determine whether or not they have maintained a consistent ideal of objectivity, and most importantly, balance.