Background

Background

Contents
Role of the news media
Forming ethical standards
Can personal ethics become professional ethics?
Where do our principles come from?
Normative principles in applied ethics
Approaches to ethics
Caveat

Role of the News Media

As far back as 1942, the role of the press in our society has been recognized as one including both rights and responsibilities. The Hutchins Commission of Freedom of the Press studied the sticky question of a “Free and Responsible Press” and presented its report in 1947. In its report, the commission called for a press that today might be deemed “socially responsible.” The five obligations of modern media, according to the Hutchins Commission, were:

To provide a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context that gives them meaning.
To serve as a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism.
To develop a representative picture of the constituent groups in society.
To be responsible for the presentation and clarification of the goals and values of society.
To provide full access to the day’s intelligence.

In other words, the Hutchins Commission believed that the media should not only do their job and attend to the ramifications of carrying out that job, but they should also involve themselves in the well being of society as a whole.

The received ideal of the role of the news media in our society is that the United States is based on the notion of popular rule. Public opinion (the basis of that rule) is to be expressed periodically through elections, and opinion, in turn, can best be cultivated by a free and vigorous press. Can we infer from this ideal, then, that the role of the news media (or journalism in general) is to keep the electorate informed? If we still believe in the ideal of journalism, we must accept this as the primary role. After all, doesn’t the First Amendment guarantee the right to a free press? While not explicitly stated in that amendment, the obligation of the media is generally understood to be as stated above—providing, first, information we need to fulfill our duties as citizens.

As we’ve come to expect, however, there is more than one role involved here. The news media also give us what we want, which typically leads to a sort of dynamic tension between the two extremes. It is a given that in order to give us what we need, the media also often have to give us what we want. In the early part of this century, philosopher John Dewey envisioned a press that would combine insider information and popular appeal. He knew that giving us only what we needed would prove a useless endeavor. Striking that balance between the “medicine” and the “spoonful of sugar” needed to get it down may be modern journalism’s greatest test. In the words of communication scholar Richard Johannesen,

The search is for an appropriate point between two undesirable extremes—the extreme of saying only what the audience desires and will approve and the extreme of complete lack of concern for and understanding of the audience.

Clearly, then, the role of the news media is to bring the public information that both informs and interests them.

Forming Ethical Standards

Ethical standards of any type require a devotion to ethical action, and ethical action often comes in conflict with our instinct to act in our own self-interest. This tendency toward egoism is manifested at every level of our lives and reflected not only in our actions but also in our deep-seated sympathy for the tenets of self-interest. We innately understand the desire of our newspaper to turn a profit, or of our media conglomerate to expand. We understand in the same way that we justify our own decisions to move ahead in life. That is why it is important to understand ethical standards from at least three perspectives: the personal, the professional, and the societal. By understanding the ethical principles associated with each level, we are less likely to act self-interestedly. However, it would be erroneous to assume that these levels are interchangeable or that a decision made using personal ethical standards would automatically apply at the professional or societal levels or vice versa.
Most of us tend to act at each of these levels with no particular priority assigned to any one, forgetting that we are obligated differently at each level. These obligations can, and often do, conflict. However, since we tend to assimilate ethical principles at each of these levels, we cannot truly separate them—nor should we. Instead, we must learn to recognize when professional standards override personal standards, or when obligations to society outweigh obligations to our employers or to ourselves. In other words, we must learn how and when the standards of each level apply. We cannot, try as we may, divorce ourselves from any of these standards and obligations and exist only on one level. How our standards develop at each level has much to do with our values and ideals, for from these two sources come our principles—the basis for our ethical actions at every level.

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Can personal ethics become professional ethics?

The obligations incurred by an individual assuming a professional role may differ radically from personal obligations. For example, it may never be appropriate for a private individual to reveal secrets about someone that might result in that person’s reputation being ruined, even if the information is true. Take that same private individual and make her a journalist whose job is to investigate the extramarital love affair of the President of the United States, and her actions might not only be deemed appropriate, they might prove to be necessary.

When we adopt a profession whose entire reason for being is to provide information, we may find the obligations of that job may, and generally do, supercede those of our personal lives. By letting our personal principles take first priority, we could be compromising our professional principles. The question then becomes, Which do we want most to be, a private citizen or a journalist? While the two roles are not mutually exclusive, there is an awareness that one assumes the mantle of professionalism willingly, accepting that a muting of personal values is part of the payment for doing so. This does not mean that we suddenly become immune to human suffering or deaf to pleas for civility or good taste. It simply means that professional values may, and often do, outweigh personal values.

To some degree personal and professional principles will certainly mesh. However, deference is usually, and possibly rightly, given to professional principles. After all, those principles ideally have been established for good reasons—reasons that go beyond satisfying personal values. The ultimate test of any principle, personal or professional, must be the efficacy of the resulting actions based on those principles—not just for the person acting (the moral agent), but for all those involved or affected by the action.

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Where do our principles come from?

Principles come from values and ideals. When we say that truth is of paramount importance to journalism, we are stating a professional value. When we talk about believing in the sanctity of life, we are expressing a personal value. When we tout journalistic objectivity, we are really talking about an ideal in the same way that being virtuous may be a personal ideal. When we say that we will not print the names of rape victims, we are talking about a principle based on the value of privacy. Likewise, a principle of not printing the names of alleged perpetrators could be based on the ideal of “innocent until proven guilty.” While the differences among these three concepts may seem at first to be small, there are some distinct definitional contrasts.

Values cover a broad range of possibilities, such as aesthetic values (something is harmonious or pleasing), pro-fessional values (innovation and promptness), logical values (consistency and competency), sociocultural values (thrift and hard work), and moral values (honesty and nonviolence).

Values are also further defined by philosophers as being either instrumental or intrinsic. An instrumental value is one that leads to something of even more value. For example, money usually is seen has having instrumental value, because possessing it leads to other things of greater value, including (we suppose) happiness. Other values, such as happiness, are said to possess intrinsic value—they are sought after because they are ends in and of themselves, and don’t necessarily lead to greater values. As journalists, for instance, we could value truth telling because it leads to an honest account of what’s happening in the world, which leads to our fulfilling our goals as reporters, which leads to us being satisfied with ourselves, which leads to happiness for us. Conversely, we could simply value truth telling as an end in itself. However, we need not trace every value through to its intrinsic conclusion; rather, we should simply be aware that some values can be ranked as more important to us because they are ends to be sought in themselves and not means to other ends.

Ideals are a bit easier to define. An ideal can be seen as a notion of excellence or a a goal that is thought to bring about greater harmony to ourselves and to others. For example, our culture respects ideals such as tolerance, compassion, loyalty, forgiveness, peace, justice, fairness, and respect for persons. In addition to these human ideals are institutional or organizational ideals, such as profit, efficiency, productivity, quality, and stability.

Ideals often come in conflict with each other. In such cases, decisions become much harder to make. For example, a choice to place the journalistic ideal of providing information an audience wants over the societal ideal of honoring privacy, could result in a decision to run a story that may, in fact, violate someone’s privacy.

Principles are those guidelines we derive from values and ideals and are precursors to codified rules. They are usually stated in positive (prescriptive) or negative (proscriptive) terms. For example, “Never corrupt the integrity of media channels,” would be a principle derived from the profes-sional value of truth telling in public relations. Or, “Always maximize profit,” might be derived from belief in the efficacy of the free-enterprise system.

When we begin to establish principles, we are committing ourselves to a course of action based on our values and ideals. When we act ethically, we typically act on principle. Principle can serve as a guideline for ethical action. That is why principles often tend to become codified, either as policies, codes, or laws. A newspaper’s policy against publishing the names of rape victims is probably based on a belief in privacy for victims of violent crimes. The principle of that belief (value) is to withhold the name, or nondisclosure. In the same way, valuing human life can lead to a principle of nonviolence. In both cases, action (or inaction) is the result of the principle and is derived from it in the same way that the principle is derived from the value or ideal.

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Normative Principles in Applied Ethics

(by James Fieser, writing for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The following principles are the ones most commonly appealed to in applied ethical discussions:

Personal benefit: acknowledge the extent to which an action produces beneficial consequences for the individual in question.
Social benefit: acknowledge the extent to which an action produces beneficial consequences for society.
Principle of benevolence: help those in need.
Principle of paternalism: assist others in pursuing their best interests when they cannot do so themselves.
Principle of harm: do not harm others.
Principle of honesty: do not deceive others.
Principle of lawfulness: do not violate the law.
Principle of autonomy: acknowledge a person's freedom over his/her actions or physical body.
Principle of justice: acknowledge a person's right to due process, fair compensation for harm done, and fair distribution of benefits.
Rights: acknowledge a person's rights to life, information, privacy, free expression, and safety.

The above principles represent a spectrum of traditional normative principles and are derived from both consequentialist and duty-based approaches. The first two principles, personal benefit and social benefit, are consequentialist since they appeal to the consequences of an action as it affects the individual or society. The remaining principles are duty-based. The principles of benevolence, paternalism, harm, honesty, and lawfulness are based on duties we have toward others. The principles of autonomy, justice, and the various rights are based on moral rights.

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Approaches to Ethics

Most ethical issues involve values: our own, and those of the people affected by our decision. Throughout history, philosophers have developed various approaches to establishing societal and personal values and methods of using them to help solve ethical dilemmas. Listed below are some of these approaches.

The Consequential Approach
Basing an ethical decision on the outcome is called “consequential ethics.” The action that produces the greatest balance of good over bad is the correct action to take. The most common form of consequential ethics is Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism was originally conceived as a way to recognize the poorer classes in a society during legislative decision making. Under this approach, ethical actions are those that provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people, no matter who those people are.

When a journalist justifies an action by saying that the public had the right to know certain information, she is using a Utilitarian argument. She is basically saying that the benefit to the public outweighs any potential harm to the subject of the story.

The danger of using this approach exclusively is that a minority opinion might be ignored, or an undeserving majority may benefit from your actions.

The Duty-based or Rights Approach
Some people have proposed that some actions are just plain right or wrong in an of themselves, regardless of the consequences. Because we are imbued with the ability to reason, we should be able to figure out which actions are right and which are wrong. Under this approach, human beings are obligated to preserve each other’s dignity, which means a respect for rights. Obligations and rights often go hand-in-hand. For example, William David Ross, a contemporary British philosopher, developed a set of six obligations that he believed everyone everywhere would recognize as being morally binding.

Fidelity—If you promise (explicitly or implicitly) to do something, you should do it. For instance, most relationships, professional and personal, assume a duty to tell the truth—or, at least, not to lie. Duties of fidelity would also include remaining faithful to contracts, explicit or implicit; and keeping promises. This category also includes duties of reparation—that is, if you do something wrong, you are obliged to undo the wrong.
Gratitude—If any person performs some service (favor) for you, then you have some obligation to the person who performed the favor. This would apply both to relationships between friends and to relationships between employer and employee. For example, if your employer treats you in an exceptional manner, above that normally expected in an employee–employer relationship, your obligation would deepen to honor your employer’s wishes beyond the duty of fidelity.
Justice—If any person deserves something by virtue of merit, you are obligated to help them achieve what they merit. By the same token, you are obligated to deny to those who do not deserve. In practice, this can often mean giving greater consideration to the claims of those who deserve it rather than to those who demand it, regardless of their position or power.
Beneficence—There are always those who need our help. If you can make some person better with respect to their state of existence, then you are obliged to do so. In a decision-making situation, this duty may oblige you to act when non-action is preferred or recommended by others.
Self–improvement—If you can make yourself better with respect to your state of existence, then you are obliged to do so. This can cover anything from preserving your own integrity to taking advantage of a favorable situation for self-improvement.
Non-injury—If you are in a position to avoid hurting someone, then you are obliged to do so. This contrasts with the duty of beneficence. Although not injuring others incidentally means doing them good, Ross interprets the avoidance of injuring others as a more pressing duty than beneficence. This may, in fact, be the most important of Ross’s duties, since it implies that the possibility of injury to any claimant to whom you are obligated must be assigned some weight. However, this very often results in a form of cost-benefit or risk-benefit analysis, which is counter to the underlying premise of duty-based theory—that rules can, and should, be moral in and of themselves, and not based on considerations of outcome.

If you turn these around, they become rights. The parallel of an obligation of non-injury is a right not to be injured. The obverse of a duty of justice is a right to be treated fairly and according to your merit. We should always strive not to violate the rights of others. For example, the so-called “Harm Principle” states that my freedom to do what I want is only limited by the degree to which it violates someone else’s rights.

Rules formulated based on obligations and rights need to be consistently followed with few exceptions. One of the best ways to discover these rules is to ask yourself if you would be willing to make this into a law that everyone everywhere would have to follow all the time—no exceptions. “Do not kill” might be one such rule.

The major drawback to duty-based ethics is that they often become absolute rules that don’t allow the flexibility that human beings need to make moral decisions. After all, if we are to use our reason, then we must realize that situations differ and no single rule can possibly cover all contingencies.

The Social Contract Approach
This approach assumes that all members of society are bound together by a “social contract.” Under this contract, each member is obligated to the whole of society to fulfill his part of the contract. Working for the common good is part of the formula of most social contracts. As Thomas Hobbes once suggested, if we don’t work together we will become mere beasts, scratching out a meager living in a “state of nature.”

The ideal of the social contract is that we each realize that we rely on the other as much as the other relies on each of us. Community is a key component of the social contract, and appeals to community or community spirit are frequently part of the decision making process.

The fairly recent resurgence of “civic journalism” is a recognition of the sense of community indicated by the social contract approach. It holds, in part, that news organizations need to be responsive to community needs and provide forums for public discourse.

The Virtue/Character Approach
Virtue or character ethics dates back at least to the early Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. They tended to ask not so much about right actions as about right character, assuming that a person of good character would automatically take right action.

Character is developed through the acquisition of virtues. Virtues are defined as traits of character, practiced habitually, that are good for you. For example: courage, honesty, integrity, fairness, benevolence, and compassion. Through education and practice, we gradually develop these character traits, eventually realizing our potential to be the best we can be.

A person of good character will eventually be able to recognize automatically the right action in a given situation. And that action will normally support the morally correct position. In addition, a person of good character will act in a consistent manner. For example, we would expect a person of good moral character to be honest in both her private and public lives.

The Care Approach
Recently, a new approach to ethics has cited a desire to move beyond the traditional-rational approach to moral decision making and consider the emotional-subjective approach outlined by the “ethic of care.” The formality of such concepts as duty and justice often results in objectification of human beings, or, at least, a distancing of the parties involved in and affected by moral decision making. Caring, on the other hand, requires a closer relationship between parties and recognition of the other as a subjective being.

Care approaches recognize the network of individual lives common within society and the care-need relationships that we all develop. Based on an “obligation to care,” this approach would have us view ourselves as part of a network of individuals whose needs (when they become clear) create a duty in us to respond. Like most ethical decisions, responding to need requires a weighing of interests; however, relating to the need on an emotional level is a vital consideration absent from many other such formulas.

While not dismissing the importance of justice and fairness, moral decisions should also make allowances for differences in needs. In other words, need may dictate an obligation to care. The ethic of care requires, at minimum, that need be recognized as an important component of human interaction.

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Caveat

Any moral decision-making process worth its salt must allow for three things: reflection, justification, and consistency.

In order to rationalize our reasons to ourselves, we must reflect on all of the facets of the dilemma we are facing. We must do so without presumption that any particular course of action is automatically appropriate. An honest assessment will provide the only means to an equitable solution.
We may be called upon to justify our decisions to others. We must be prepared to do so with the expectation that we will never satisfy everyone, but with the determination to try.
Finally, we must be consistent, for moral consistency is the one of the hallmarks of integrity, and integrity may be the most valuable coin of the moral realm.

Moral decision making must become routine—so engrained in our professional behavior that we cannot separate it from our other decision-making processes. The ultimate goal of any decision-making tool is to allow for the formulation of principles and guidelines by which to make future decisions. At the very least, its consistent use should so educate the user that future moral decisions might become second nature.

A final caveat: Blind obedience to any one philosophy is not sufficient for an educated analysis of a moral issue.

Unwavering adherence to any rule, no matter how well-intentioned, can lead to callousness.
By the same token, service always to the greater good can result in tyrannizing a deserving minority.
We cannot let our emotions rule our decisions any more than we can let our reason alone (often cold and calculating) do so.
And, we must remember that service to our professions and service to society are not always one and the same thing.

There are times when each of these may fairly overrule the other. While it is probably true that we can justify almost any decision using an approach such as the ones suggested here, it must be borne in mind that we will be judged not solely by our own principles but, to a greater degree, by the principles of those we most affect.

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Except where noted, all text copyright ©2005 by Thomas H. Bivins