Journalists, who obviously, are part of the media, follow a certain code of ethics. Sometimes the code isn’t spoken, but understood, or the outlet they work for has a written code, maybe even both. But is ethics taking over good journalism?
Are journalists too afraid to report on something because it may offend a consumer, even if it is completely true? Is their work improving as they grow in the industry? Do journalists feel they connect with their consumers? The answer? No.
It is reported that journalists agree there are major problems. About 47 percent agree that they think their work is improving, just short of half.
But 39 percent of journalists think the newspapers they work for are interesting to read. Finally, only 21 percent of journalists think they connect with consumers. Those are not good statistics. Why is this? Shouldn’t they be able to fix it?
“For all sorts of reasons, timidity, self-satisfaction, greed, inappropriate desire to belong…for all these reasons and more, there is an awful lot that the press keeps from you…. we’ll begin with squeamishness… and an overdeveloped fear of offending someone… orthodoxy, conventional thinking, a misplaced pleasure at being on the inside, incompetence and laziness…. greed…. the fact, for example, that too many papers by far do not wish to offend major advertisers….”
— Speech to Stanford graduates by Geneva Overholser
That quote sums up why there is no solution perfectly. Media outlets would rather have sub-par articles that are kind, than upset advertisers by reporting on something wrong with one of them. It puts journalists in the position to always question if they are writing something nice enough.
