According to the Society of Professional Journalists’ (SPJ) Code of Ethics, professional journalists should seek the truth and report it. Their code states, “Ethical journalism should be accurate and fair. Journalists should be honest and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.”

Under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, every single American citizen can exercise their right to free speech. Speech can be anything from symbolic speech, speech by assembly, spoken speech and written speech.

Does this mean everyone should be noted as a professional journalist? Absolutely not.

How can we decipher between news coming from your average Joe and news coming from a trained media professional? Is licensing journalists the answer?

In a perfect world, everyone who delivered news would hold the same ethical values as the SPJ. However, that is not the case. Due to the technology of today, we receive our news as it happens. Something will happen, and instantly we will find out about it on Facebook and Twitter.

As a journalism/public relations student, I realize how journalists lately have a bad reputation for being one sided or bias. Sometimes, it can be difficult to find the clear cut facts on an issue without wondering if there is a hidden agenda framed behind each media message we stumble upon.

As a journalism student I personally wouldn’t mind taking a test or possibly going through a few extra courses to obtain a license to prove my work is credible. However, some believe that licensing journalists would threaten our First Amendment right and give the government too much power.

I can understand this view point. People are afraid that the government will have the choice in who to give a license to and who will get their license taken away. Also, I can see the flaw in that many people who simply love to write will not be taken as seriously, even if they are 100 percent ethical.

On the other hand, I can see how a licensing system would give ethical journalists their reputation back as being honest and displaying the facts without bias. This way, every citizen would still have the right to blog, report and give opinions on news, but only licensed journalists would be seen as 100 percent credible and unbiased.

What if a licensed journalist was going to write an opinion piece? I think this would be okay as long as the journalist made it clear that it was an opinion, and did not try to frame their opinion as a fact.

I’m not sure if licensing journalists is the right thing to do or not, but I believe it would be beneficial to know that the source of my news is reporting ethically without a hidden agenda.

Do you think licensing journalists is a good option? Please leave your opinion in the comment section below.