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The importance of national security can present ethical challenges for large news organizations, as journalists struggle to determine whether publishing a story about, say, military activities in a war zone would put American soldiers in danger. But the most common ethical dilemmas encountered in most newsrooms across the United States involve deception, privacy invasions, and conflicts of interest.

Deception

Ever since Nellie Bly faked insanity to get inside a corrupt asylum in the 1880s (see Chapter 3), some investigative journalists have used deception to gain access to the information they need to create news stories. For example, they might pose as a desperately ill client to expose a suspected fraudulent clinic.

The ethical question about deception is: Does the end justify such means? A person could take a number of different positions on this question. At one extreme, absolutist ethics suggests that a moral society has laws and codes, including “be honest” or “don’t lie,” that everyone must live by at all times and in all cases. At the other end is situational ethics, which say that we must make decisions on a case-by-case basis about how we can best serve the greater public good—even if doing so requires deception or dishonesty.

Just as outright lying constitutes deception, so can withholding certain information. For example, should a journalist conceal his or her professional identity to get a quote or a story from an interview subject? Most newsrooms frown on this. In particular situations, though, they might condone the practice if reporters and their editors believe that the public needs the information the act of deception could produce. The ethics code adopted by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) is fairly silent on issues of deception. The code instead calls on journalists to “seek truth and report it,” “minimize harm” (i.e., show compassion and sensitivity toward individuals in news stories), “act independently” (i.e., “be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know”), and “be accountable . . . to their readers, listeners, viewers, and each other.” The preamble to the SPJ code asks journalists to provide “a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.”⁴

Privacy Invasion

To gather information for new stories, journalists routinely straddle a line between “the public’s right to know” and a person’s right to privacy. For example, reporters may rush to a hospital to gather quotes from people who have been injured in a train derailment. Although the U.S. Constitution contains no explicit right to privacy that would protect people from reporters who want to question them, the Bill of Rights does protect specific aspects of what has become “privacy law” in various court cases through the years, such as the “privacy” of our beliefs and speech (First Amendment), the privacy of protecting personal possessions against unreasonable search and seizure (Fourth Amendment), and the privilege against self-incrimination, which provides some protection of personal information (Fifth Amendment). In instances where the news media want access to personal information pertaining to a story, do journalists responsibly weigh the protection of individual privacy against the public’s right to know? Indeed, there is also no constitutional guarantee that the public has “a right to know.”

One infamous example of this conflict is the recent phone hacking scandal involving News Corp.’s now-shuttered British newspaper, News of the World. In 2011, the Guardian reported that News of the World reporters had hired a private investigator to hack into the voice mail of thirteen-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler and had deleted some of her messages. This revelation, on top of past allegations of private voice mail hacking by News of the World reporters, caused a huge scandal and led to the arrests and resignations of several senior executives. Today, when reporters can gain access to private e-mail messages, Twitter accounts, and Facebook pages as well as voicemail, such practices raise serious questions about how far a reporter should go to get information.

To resolve these issues, reporters and editors can ask themselves such questions as: What public good would be served if I invaded someone’s privacy to get information for this story? What significant knowledge will the public gain? Journalism’s code of ethics says “only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy,” but this could clash with another part of the code: “Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.” When these two ethical standards collide, reporters often err on the side of the public’s right to know because it is usually in journalism’s interest to get the best quotes and information for the story.

Conflicts of Interest

Journalism’s code of ethics also warns reporters and editors not to place themselves in positions that create a conflict of interest—that is, situations in which journalists may stand to benefit personally from producing a story or from presenting the subject in a certain light. “Journalists should refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment,” the code states, “and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.”⁵

Many news outlets attempt to protect journalists from getting into compromising positions. For instance, in most cities, journalists do not actively participate in politics or support social causes. Some journalists will not reveal their political affiliations, and some have even declined to vote. If a journalist has a tie to any organization, and that organization is later suspected of involvement in shady or criminal activity, the reporter’s ability to report fairly on the organization would be compromised—along with the credibility of the news outlet for which he or she works. Conversely, other journalists believe that not participating in politics or social causes means abandoning one’s civic obligations.