Digital journalism is currently an important form of communication allowing information dissemination rapidly. The literature review will identify what ethics digital journalists should abide by and describe the ethical challenges digital journalists face. These include: publishing unchecked information or editing photos, photographing individuals in vulnerable states, as well as how these ethical issues came to be. The review concludes by stating limitations of the studies and suggesting further reading.
To contextualize digital journalism ethics, (ABC) Australian Broadcasting Corporation editorial policy director Paul Chadwick provides his ethical framework through a qualitative research. The framework entailed journalists as custodians to privacy in reference to selfhood, liberty and to intimacy – an ethical line crossed in the case study of journalists reporting on Gaddafi’s crisis situation. Another characteristic was the freedom from discriminating, led by hate and prejudice – a second ethical line crossed by Uk Press, in allowing their anger to depict Gaddafi as scum. Lastly, journalists are also held accountable to suggest, disclose, search, and scrutinize power. Neither of which seem present in below’s studies of journalist decisions.
In Eberwein’s study, he finds that the increase of internet interactivity causes unethical decisions in journalists (Eberwein and Porlezza, 2016). The answers collected from his qualitative research (survey) of journalists from 12 European countries established that this factor causes digital journalists to publish incorrect information, as there is an inadequate time to consistently fact check news sources due to the handling of interaction between journalists and it’s participating readers. Another study conducted qualitative researches on interviews of 10 online Spanish media outlets to further solidify the notion that (Garcia-Aviles and Alberto, 2014), “an obsession with immediacy in publishing news first, leads to plenty of published mistakes.” Further issues surfaced from this study such as(as cited in Deuze, 2004), “most newsrooms don’t have a sophisticated system in place to allow crosschecking of contents.” The pressure from news agencies to keep up with the reader’s demands causes an urgency for journalists to
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publish news rapidly, while simultaneously straying away from ethics. This influences participating citizen journalists who see professional journalist as a reference in collecting news.
The third qualitative study conducted focused on further pressures of journalists created by readers in documentation of news in times of crisis- particularly the Iraqi war. The culprit of unethical photojournalism, Brian Walski admitted: “whilst covering the Iraqi war, I felt pressured to produce sensational photos.” While there, he superimposed half a photo and combined it with another to produce a more “artistic and beautiful imagery of the horrific war,” (Rosen and Johnston, 2003). This caused a reaction in the news corporation tied to him, in that a journalist is obligated to uphold news in objectivity and truthfulness yet failed by “faking” the depiction of reality for a more “sensational” photo. Furthering this notion of photo manipulation, (Page, 2012) conducted a content analysis to determine the characteristics of a digitally ethical photo. (Page, 2012) identified (citing Lodriguss, 2011) that ethical photojournalism has no intentions of misleading readers. Conversely, a photo deemed ethical, truthfully admits to manipulation in the photo caption. Consequently, news companies pressure it’s journalist to produce photos that captivate and sell for readers. This pressure substantiates an unethical and calculated approach that journalists use in crisis settings. An example of this approach is banking on photos of malnutritioned African women and children, (Dent, 2014). The critical issue here centers on the lack of respect journalists’ have when treating humans as objects in photography, capitalizing over their vulnerable state. This phenomenon can be seen on channels like National Geography where documentation of their “pitiful” state in poverty and sickness is plenty. The article does offer awareness for readers of the reality in African countries suffering from crisis situations of poverty and rebel fighters lurking constantly but shows the uglier side of commercialization of journalists that desensitizes readers over victims of poverty in Africa.
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Building on documenting crisis situations, we look at the case study of Uk News’ reporting Gaddafi’s capture, and Alan Hennings’ beheading by ISIS. (Chouliaraki, 2015) study states that similar to disrespecting an individual’s vulnerability as Dent’s study (citing al-Ghazzi, 2014), perhaps if rebels hadn’t produced a digital recording of Gaddafi’s capture and respected his privacy, his fate might be different,. Documentation of controversial figures by citizen journalists could endanger their own lives as well as the controversial figure’s life as the internet surfaces images and videos sources rapidly as mentioned in Eberwein’s article. Chouliaraki also contrasted a structural form of unethical challenge through news corporations’ depiction of Gaddafi’s persecution versus Henning’s execution. This depiction was influenced by political biasedness that news corporations practice, as the Uk news depicted a distain and disapproval of Gaddafi as a late dictator figure, whilst showing remorse and characterising Henning’s execution as heroic.
Limitations to the studies included a lack of research material as the articles mostly focused on crisis situation such as Chouliaraki’s, Jackie’s, and Rosen’s study. Therefore circumstances in those situations are not generalizable for a journalist’s daily struggle in ethical decisions. However the articles mutually suggest that digital journalism is still rapidly developing and on a path to determining what ethical codes it should solidify. Further studies can be made on resources such as: “Sustainable Education” by Susan Brown and “Rethinking Journalism” by John Pavlik, These resources suggest how ethical decisions can be implemented in education systems for digital journalists.
To conclude, these articles related multiple scenarios that entailed challenges of digital ethics that journalists succumb to from growing pressures to produce “sensational” news” in short periods of time. There tends to be scenarios that journalists are sucked into, producing unethical behaviours when attaining the “sensational” status of news, like: a lack of fact-checking (Eberwein, 2016). Further ethical challenges include photo-
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journalism case studies like Brian Walski’s, Gadaffi’s capture, and the commercialization of African children and women. Journalists keep their job by walking on a thin line of eggshells, pleasing those who want a “sensational” depiction of reality while others criticize their unethical approaches in attaining “perfect” news.
999 words.
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Reference List
Brown, S. (2014). Conceptualizing digital literacies and digital ethics for sustainability education. Int J Of Sus In Higher Ed, 15(3), 280-290. doi: 10.1108/IJSHE-08-2012-0078
Chadwick, P. (2010). The Ethical Journalist Online. Living Ethics: Newsletter Of The St. James Ethics Centre, No. 81(Spring 2010), 12. Retrieved from <http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=450303998010940;res=IELAPA>
Chouliaraki, L. (2015). Digital witnessing in conflict zones: the politics of remediation. Information,
Communication & Society, 18(11), 1362-1377.
doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2015.1070890
Dent, J. (2014). Ethics of war photo journalism. Ethics Quarterly, No. 98(Summer 2014), 10-17. Retrieved from <http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=897802270274055;res=IELAPA>
Eberwein, T. and Porlezza, C. (2016), Both Sides of the Story: Communication Ethics in Mediatized Worlds. J Commun, 66, pp 328–342. doi:10.1111/jcom.12216
García-Avilés, J. (2014). Online Newsrooms as Communities of Practice: Exploring Digital Journalists' Applied Ethics. Journal Of Mass Media Ethics, 29(4), 258-272. doi: 10.1080/08900523.2014.946600
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Page, T. L. (2012). Ethics of photojournalism in the digital age (Order No. 1510225). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1015394547). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1015394547?accountid=12528
Pavlik, J. (2013). A Vision for Transformative Leadership: Rethinking Journalism and Mass Communication Education for the Twenty-First Century. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 68(3), 211-221. doi: 10.1177/1077695813499561
Rosen, J. (2003). Digital Deception. American Journalism Review, 25(4), 10.
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