Throughout the twentieth century, sets of beliefs and practices came to define what was accepted as news and what it meant to be a journalist reporting that news. Despite the technical and inherent stylistic differences among print, radio, and television, mainstream journalists in all media shared a similar mission, encountered similar ethical issues, and developed methods designed to get and share information. These concepts have proven invaluable for news operations trying to do the never-ending job of providing the information the public needs to make informed and intelligent decisions. They also provide a framework within which journalists say they are adhering to principles of unbiased truth-seeking and from which they derive a great portion of their authority. Critics suggest that these practices are just as likely to create biases, derail honest discussions about those biases, and paint a picture that distorts reality. But before one can discuss what is a useful tool and what is a potential pitfall, it’s helpful to understand more about news culture and the common customs of gathering the news, starting with the most basic question of journalism: What is news?

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What Is News?

News is the process of gathering information and making reports that use a narrative framework; in other words, news reports tell stories. News reports (whether in print, on TV, or on the Internet) help the public make sense of prominent people, important events, and unusual happenings in everyday life. Over time, journalists have developed a set of criteria for determining whether information is newsworthy—that is, whether it merits transformation into news stories. These criteria include timeliness, proximity, conflict, prominence, human interest, consequence, usefulness, novelty, and deviance:⁷

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In producing news stories that meet many of these criteria, journalists influence our interpretations of what is going on around us and thus the decisions we make. For example, if we read a story in the newspaper emphasizing the consequences of failing to save for retirement, we may conclude that such saving is important—and that we’d better do more of it. If we see a lot of stories about crime and violence, even as fewer and fewer violent crimes are actually being committed, we might conclude that the world is a more dangerous place than the facts actually suggest.

Values in American Journalism

In addition to telling us how journalists define news, newsworthiness criteria begin to paint a picture of the values that came to define American journalism in the 1970s and 1980s. This was a time some refer to as the “golden age” of journalism, when newspapers enjoyed consistent profitability and the Big Three TV networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC) hadn’t yet encountered the competition from cable and online news. It was also a time when the journalism profession was enjoying a boost in prestige and popularity in the wake of big stories about the Watergate scandal and the Pentagon Papers (see “Media Literacy Case Study: From Uncovering Scandals to Being the Scandal”). It was from this time that researchers started identifying and critiquing the values—not always recognized by the journalists themselves at the time—that influenced how stories were covered (or not).

Putting It in Neutral

Perhaps the most prominent and obvious of these values is neutrality, or the apparent lack of bias—a quality that remains prized even in a more polarized environment that has given rise to more opinionated forms of news. Many professional journalists believe strongly that their job is to gather and then present facts without judging them. Conventions such as the inverted-pyramid news lead (starting reports with the most important information), the careful attribution of sources (favoring quoted interview subjects rather than the reporter’s analysis), the minimal use of adverbs and adjectives (getting rid of ornate, flowery language in order to look “factual”), and the detached third-person point of view (using the omniscient, or all-knowing, authorial point of view favored by many novelists) all help reporters present their findings in a supposedly neutral way.

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Journalists argue that this dedication to neutrality (and related concepts of fairness, balance, independence, objectivity, and so on) boosts their credibility and is an important part of what separates news from propaganda. Generations of journalists have spent careers trying to live up to these ideals as part of what they see as their mission to serve their audiences and communities. At its best, a commitment by individual journalists to these traditional news values have helped them get the news, hold the powerful to account, and resist manipulation by those who would deceive the public.

However, critics in and out of the profession say this approach also brings a set of problems. In practice, neutrality is itself an unrealistic goal. In deciding which stories to cover with limited resources, news operations make judgments about what is worthy of attention (or not) by the public. Merely by deciding which information and experience to include in a news story, journalists cannot help but present a point of view on the story’s topic. And although the pursuit of personal detachment might have become part of a well-intentioned set of ethics, it is still true that the origins of the shift from partisan to objective journalism in the 1800s had at least as much to do with economics as with ethics.

Another problem with the concept of “neutrality” for journalism might be the way in which believing one’s judgment to be neutral can create dangerous blind spots, which ultimately undermine the ethical intentions of journalists. Assumptions about what is normal or “natural” are often involved when trying to find the neutral position, especially when dealing with social issues. Take, for example, the experience of the New York Times during the 1970s and 1980s and the way it covered—or, rather, often ignored—gay rights and the AIDS epidemic. The antigay positions of the paper’s management and owners at the time (including Ochs’s daughter Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger) became the target for critics who said the silence of this “objective” newspaper slowed public attention and public support for the fight against AIDS, contributing to the ultimate death toll from the disease, before the Times changed its policies in the late 1980s.⁸

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Diversity in the Newsroom

An important part of the critique of the ability of newsrooms to achieve neutrality or objectivity involves the ways in which the demographics of a newsroom reflect the demographics of the community it covers. For much of the twentieth century, mainstream news operations were dominated by white men and, as such, lacked the perspective that comes with the different lived experiences of other groups in society. This hurts the ability of a newsroom to question what it considers “normal” or “neutral,” which is really based on a very non-neutral worldview.

Beginning in the 1970s, there was a push to make newsrooms more diverse. The good news is that from 1977 to 1994, the number of minority reporters in newspaper newsrooms nearly tripled, from 4 percent to 11 percent. The bad news is that the number hasn’t improved much in the last twenty years. As of 2012, minority journalists made up only 12 percent of the total newspaper newsroom workforce, whereas in the rest of America, nonwhites make up about 39 percent of the population. Women (half of the population) still make up less than half of newsroom employees, and only about a third of newsroom managers.⁹

Getting a Good Story

According to Don Hewitt, the creator and longtime executive producer of 60 Minutes, “There’s a very simple formula if you’re in Hollywood, Broadway, opera, publishing, broadcasting, newspapering. It’s four very simple words—tell me a story.”¹⁰ For most journalists, the bottom line is “Get the story”—an edict that overrides most other concerns. This is the standard against which many reporters measure themselves and their profession. At its best, it can provide inspiration to keep digging to uncover important information or perspectives that might be difficult to get or that someone is trying to hide from public view. At its worst, it can lead to a variety of unethical and even criminal behaviors (see “Media Literacy Case Study: From Uncovering Scandals to Being the Scandal”). It has also occasionally led journalists to make up stories, such as in the early 1980s, when former Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize for a story she made up about a mother who contributed to the heroin addiction of her eight-year-old son (the prize was later revoked). Or in the early 2000s, when it came to light that New York Times reporter Jayson Blair had frequently plagiarized and fabricated stories. These more extreme cases are typically career ending and generate condemnation from the journalistic community.

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Getting a Story First

In addition to getting a good story, one of the most valued achievements for a reporter is getting the story first. It is a badge of honor to be a reporter who can scoop the competition—that is, uncover and report a story before anyone else. Again, this creates a double-edged sword: It provides motivation for carrying out the necessary and sometimes difficult news-gathering tasks of reporting, but also applies pressure that too often results in poorly researched stories, rampant misinformation, little or no fact-checking, and all-around sloppy reporting.

What’s not always clear is how the public is better served by a journalist’s claim to have gotten a story first. What is clear is that the problems that have always existed because of the pressure to get the story first have intensified with 24/7 cable news channels, the Internet, and competition from bloggers. We discuss this again later in the chapter when we look more closely at how the entire journalism profession is changing and being challenged in the digital era.

Getting a Story “Right”

Although journalists certainly value being the first ones to uncover an interesting story and tell it in a compelling way, it would be a mistake to ignore the importance to professional journalists of getting the facts correct. Traditionally, serious journalists pride themselves on the results of careful news-gathering, ideally using multiple sources to confirm controversial information and allegations made in news stories. From the lessons learned in journalism schools to the awarding of top prizes for reporting, getting accurate information is the gold standard. More than just a professional standard, getting the truth also carries legal responsibilities. Journalists are taught that the best defense against a libel lawsuit is that the report can be shown to be factually true. However, critics are quick to point out that in practice, the gold standard isn’t always met. Reasons for this can range from an honest mistake (journalists are human, after all) or deadline and workload pressures preventing adequate fact-checking, to outright lying or omission of important information due to a desire for self-promotion by sources and sometimes journalists themselves. In addition, journalists often face the task of sifting through information provided by public relations practitioners who are paid to make their clients look good to the public. As of 2013, U.S. labor statistics indicated that there were almost five public relations practitioners for every journalist.¹¹

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Other Values in Journalism

Some sociologists—including Herbert Gans, who studied the newsroom cultures of CBS, NBC, Newsweek, and Time in the 1970s—generalize that several basic “enduring values” have been shared by most American reporters and editors. These values include ethnocentrism (viewing other cultures through an American “lens”), responsible or benign capitalism (the assumption that the main goal of business is to enhance prosperity for everyone), small-town pastoralism (favoring small, rural communities over big cities), and a major emphasis on individualism and personal stories over the operations of large institutions or organizations.¹² Many of these beliefs are still prevalent in today’s more fragmented news culture, though they are undergoing shifts along with the rest of the industry.

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When Values Collide: Ethics and the News Media

Up to this point, we have been talking about some of the common practices, values, and goals by which professional journalists tend to define who they are and what they do. As you might already have noticed, these values can sometimes conflict with one another and with the realities of gathering the news (deadlines, shrinking newsroom staffs, bigger demands on limited resources).

Journalists regularly face many such conflicts and ethical dilemmas. For example, they must decide when to protect government secrets and when to reveal those secrets to the public. They must consider whether it is ethically acceptable to use deception or to invade someone’s privacy to get information the public deserves to know, and they must guard against accepting gifts or favors in return for producing a news story or presenting a story’s subject in a favorable light.

Professional Codes of Ethics

So how do journalists decide what to do in these cases? One way is to refer to sets of ethical guidelines produced by professional journalistic groups, like the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA, formerly the Radio-Television News Directors Association), and the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). Although each has a slightly different focus, all three instruct journalists to seek the truth, hold the powerful accountable, maintain integrity, and consider the consequences of each news report, especially on people who appear in the news. Journalism education programs typically contain stand-alone ethics courses or attempt to integrate ethics into other classes—or both. Each newsroom might have its own printed code of ethical guidelines or, more likely, might rely on veteran reporters and editors to pass along to newer journalists what’s considered acceptable in that particular news department. It’s also worth noting that these printed codes of ethical conduct are not etched in stone. All of these groups review and update their ethics—now more than ever, with the new ethical dilemmas that have come with the Internet and social media.

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Applying Ethics and Values Inside the Job

Codes of ethics can be helpful, but they would be impossibly long if they were to cover every possible situation a reporter might find. There are times when parts of a given code will come in conflict with one another. What’s more, these dilemmas mostly happen when reporters are facing the crush of deadlines and daily duties. Many times the necessity for making a quick decision means answering these questions in a way that has become established professional practice—that is, the way it has always been done. Although relying on the experience of the individual or the organization can be helpful and save time, it can also undermine careful critical examination of a given situation.

In addition to guidelines designed specifically for the profession, a journalist might also borrow from other philosophical approaches to ethics when confronted with an ethical quandary. Although this isn’t intended to be a complete list of those approaches, the next few paragraphs attempt to offer a few useful examples.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle offered an early ethical concept, the “golden mean,” as a guideline for seeking balance between competing positions. For Aristotle, the golden mean referred to the desirable middle ground between extreme positions. For example, Aristotle saw ambition as the golden mean between sloth and greed.

Another ethical principle entails the “categorical imperative,” developed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). This idea suggests that a society must adhere to moral codes that are universal and unconditional, applicable in all situations at all times. For example, the ideal to always tell the truth might lead a Kantian to argue that it’s never okay to use deception to get a news story.

British philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) promoted a general ethics principle derived from “the greatest good for the greatest number.” This principle directs us “to distribute a good consequence to more people rather than to fewer, whenever we have a choice.”¹⁵

Applying Ethics and Values Outside the Job

Although the Internet, bloggers, social media, and partisan cable stations and Web sites have blurred the lines between journalist and nonjournalist, most mainstream news organizations have ethical expectations of their journalists that extend beyond the hours spent on the job. 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 avoid political and other activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility.”¹⁶

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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 will 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.