Media Ethics

 Media ethics is concerned about the question of what is right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable about the means and ways that the media collects and presents information and news. It is also about the normative and prescriptive nature of guiding and controlling the practical aspect of media with ethical principles.
The following codes are formulated to regularize the media in general.

Responsibility: The right of a newspaper to attract and hold readers is restricted by nothing but considerations of public welfare. A journalist who uses his power for any selfish or otherwise unworthy motive is not trustworthy. We shall elaborate on this elsewhere.
Freedom of the Press: Freedom of the press is guarded as a vital right of media. It is the unquestionable right to discuss whatever is not explicitly forbidden by law including the wisdom of any restrictive statute.
Independence: Freedom from all obligations except that of fidelity to the public interest is vital.
Sincerity, Truthfulness, Accuracy: These enable media have a good rapport with the reader.
Impartiality: news reports and expression of opinion are expected to be free from bias of any kind.
Fairplay: question of private rights and public interest distinguished from public curiosity. Secondly, it is the privilege as well as the duty, of media to make prompt and complete correction of its own serious mistakes of fact.
Being ethical in print media
The daily print media is the basic means for the day-by-day dissemination of the news. It is the gate way of elaborate information of the world and its events. It has greater influence on the society. It furnishes news or information regarding the events of the contemporary world, with an interpretation and comments upon these events. Newspapers can ‘head-line’ some items of news or opinions and make them seem very important, and they can suppress items or omit them entirely. They advertise for business and other establishments, acting as a sales medium. They furnish entertainment of various types, from comic strips to puzzles. They provide miscellaneous information which it is difficult to classify under any of the above headings.
Print media is under severe criticism from time to time. Three major criticisms Media Ethics are usually leveled against the newspaper today. They are as follows: It is said that the press, while claiming to be an objective agent for the dissemination of news, is in reality a group of business corporations run in the interest of profits for the owners or the stockholders. Due to this business link with mere profit motive, print media is subject to financial pressure and is controlled by a small group. Eventually it tries to serve their social, political and economic interests. It is claimed that newspapers are subject to additional pressure from major advertisers. In order to please the advertiser owing to huge revenue from them, most of the times, print media may indulge in distortion and improper slanting of the news. Most newspapers are frankly partisan in politics. When economic issues are involved, newspapers with few exceptions serve the interests of the dominant groups.
In order to regularize the print media towards serving the larger interest of people rather than few influential and powerful groups, certain ethical guidelines are emphasized. Legislative action is suggested to check the monopoly in the handling the information. As individuals, we should widen our range or variety of reading and check items or articles that arouse our suspicion. Both public and private bureaus of information and investigation should be developed and supported. We might establish a few endowed newspapers on a non-profit basis, with different sections of the paper assigned to different interest groups.

Freedom of press and right of privacy
Many journalists believe, as witnessed particularly in India during the last couple of years, that the public’s right to know and the need to expose vice and corruption are superior to all other concerns. Most of the time it turns out to be focusing more on privacy of people which is turned out to be ‘newsworthy’ item in their media career. People in public life are vulnerable when their private lives become a spotlight for the media. The growth in mass media size, profile and influence together with technological change or otherwise called ‘information revolution,’ made the privacy of people so fragile. Privacy is one of the fundamental freedoms of people and it is essential to liberty and human dignity. Media justifies such interference in privacy of people arguing that it is in the public interest. Privacy is not just a concern over personal information and the dangers of ‘surveillance society.’ It is more than the mere maintenance of one’s ‘data protection,’ or confidentiality of any information.
In using the personal information of people and facts about events in an individual’s life media has a greater responsibility. Even though there are strangely few odd persons who try to seek a high profile and public recognition, to further their own interests or some cause or philosophy they support through publicly going with personal details. The balance between individual’s right to privacy and public’s right to know, is often unsteady. Ethical issues and choices arise out of it. The public’s right to know is one of the guiding principles of journalists. They believe strongly that if officials are allowed to act in secrecy, miscarriages of justice and corruption may result. Is it an unobstructed right to know everything? Is the public’s right to know always in ‘the public interest’? Do journalists understand ‘the public interest’ to mean the public ‘good’, in the classic sense, or the public’s curiosity? If we assume the public is always curious about the private details of other’s lives (or pictures of their experiences), does that make it right to ‘print everything you know’? Is the public always curious or are they often offended by the information or photographs put before them, and are the media therefore out of step with the very audience they claim to serve? These are the serious concerns in media ethics. Simple check before a journalist when deciding whether to print or broadcast a piece of information or a picture: Is it true? Is it fair? And is it necessary?
Remedial measures for maladies in mass media
The maladies in mass media are problematic as they affect entire society directly and indirectly. For example, certain advertisements on tobacco-related materials are undoubtedly detrimental to the healthy life of people, particularly younger generation who are future pillars of the nation. The mass media has an obligation to the society to show right things, right thought, right guidelines, and right behavior.
Where ever the suppression of fact is necessary, the mass media has a duty to do it immediately. For instance reporting of sensitive communal riots and tensions might be suppressed if it would accelerate further riots and tensions in other parts of the world. Suppression of personal misbehavior of particular individual, for which one is duly punished, is recommended with exaggerating it to be the important news item. Reporting the individual’s wrong doing as belong to particular community, state, religion, or country, is unwarranted. Equality before law guarantees that wrong doer will be punished without any discrimination or preference.
Whenever an exaggeration of fact is necessary, the mass media has to do it for the welfare of people. It might alert people and enable them to protect them as early as possible. For example, news about the death of 1000 persons in road accident duet to violation of wearing helmet could possibly be exaggerated so as to create awareness among people to protect themselves. It depends upon the context that the mass media has to work carefully without any delay.

By: Mona Kaushal