Professional morality
Definition of morality :
Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.
Professional morality : professional people exercise speacial skills. How the use of this skills should be governed when providing a service to the public can be considered a moral issue and is termed professional morality.
There are specific qualities that a journalist should be charactarized in
1. Recognize a good story
2. Finding dramatic and interesting stories
3. Social ,good with people
4. Hard working
5. Take good notes
6. Writing skills
7. Puncuate
8. Releable and trustwothy
9. Honest
Journalist must be loyal with readers and provide them with good and accurate stories.journalists work as a team but competetive , journalists rarely share information with other journalists. But lines of communication must remain since its very important.
Professional practice :
There are some patterns in work that the journalist decide how to deal with them.A good journalist would be aware of these patterns.
Sensetivity : a journalist must deal with sensetivity while gathering information and while writing a story, and he/she must avoide offencive language or offensive ways of writing.
Meeting people:
The journalist here works on his personality and his outer beauty . journalists think that being liked and having a good personality would make people trust them more to share informations. Journalists must be friendly with people so they can take information from them easily.
Causing offence:
Journalist must always be carefull to choose the right words, and the right language so that it doeasnt look cheap and doesn’t cause any offence to him.
Interviews
A journalist should always be loyal with people and be fair inaddition the jouralist must be honest with the interviewer since most of the people are not used to interviwes where the journalist is skilled in it.
The journalist should tell the interviwer that he/she is recording his voice and taking notes of his words. If the interviwer approves then its oj to record.
The interview can be in 2 ways :
1. Writing notes
2. Recording
Recording can be :
A. On the record
B. Off the record
C. Non-attributable
A. On the record : the interview is opened that means that anything the interviewer says is used by his name.
B. Off the record: is mostly used for offical and semi-official positions since in this type the interviewer speaks without using specific quats and without saying their names.
C. Non-attributable : this type do not differ a lot from off the record its mosty used by politicians and royalty. What they say can be used all word by word but without mentioning the name.
Note taking :
Its very important for a journalist even if the interview is recorded and there is a camera the journalist must always take notes.
Quotes:
quotes are usually used to suport the news story, but that doesn’t mean that the journalist must transcript the whole interview. What is itmportant is that the quotes are used accurately and appropriatly and in order.
Use of language :
Journalists must use their words carefully, many words are considered offensive for different groups in society the journalist must be aware of this the usage of racial and sexist language ,religious,slang is forbidden.
Vetting copy : reporters some times are asked to give a copy of their notes to the interviwer so he/she can check if the reported agreed to give a copy then he/she no logar are responsible of editing.
Covering stories:
By covering a story a journalist loyalty is to the public,the the reader . for example if a certain crime happened and in court the relatives of the accused was tring to keep the story hidden its not up to the journalist to decide whether to publish the story or not, it’s the editors decision. This decision is taken with respect to the editors morality and ethics.
Embargoes:
Some organization put restriction on how and when their news can be published, governments send a release on some documents to the media on the news yo be published before the date it set to give them a chance to read. In this situation a journalist should not publish these news before the date the organization put.
People with limited rights,or have difficulty in upholding their rights like children or mental helth services they tend to get in to media with no fault.
These people are very vulnerable to deal with, they must be treated with sensetivity.children for example are special cases when it comes to covering a story about them or a story that involves them they must be treated with care. Its known that kids have the right to make mistakes, when a child is witness or an interviwer the journalist must be carefull in naming the child since it can be a risk to them.
Inside a court an offended child is protected by law. Every news paper that focus on children and name the child involved its reputation is blackened.
If a child was a victim of an accident or a crime or any event a journalist should be very careful trying to approuch them and avoid taking information from the child and treat him/her with sensitivity.
Adult victims:
They also must be treated with care espe cially women who are most beatin up or sexually abuseda journalist by covering this story must be carfull not to mention the name cuz it could be a risk for her.
People if their names and adresses are bublished may be considered a risk are :
1. People in the public eye
2. Judges
3. Police officers
4. Members of the armed forces
5. People acused of crimes and their relatives
6. Aids victims and their care workers
Plagiarism :
Sometimes journlists under pressure rewrite stories and give them as their own .
Personal lives:
People believe that a journalist should not have any political life and personal view and act only as an observer,
But journalist need to be concerned about the society so its really hard on the journalist to make sure not to ad their personal view if they are supporting the interviwer of against.
Freedom to publish:
It is used by 1. Politicians
2.broadcasters
3. news paper
properties that want to use the press for their own intrest.
1. Politicians: see freedom of press as the freedom to print the truth about their upponents and printing the truth about them is called invasion of privacy
2. Newspaper owners: freedom of press means printing whatever makes money
3. Broadcasters: want to broadcast anything that increase their audience
Publishing and journalism :
Journalist | publishing |
Are not directly driven by profits | Profits are their priority |
Aware of the moral aspects and moral issues | Don’t care about moral aspects and moral issues |
Takes care of the quality of information gathered and what information to be published | Publish any information that increase the audience and improve the rating and boost advertising revenues |
A journalist also is concerned that the organization he/she is workin in continue to operate inaddition they don’t want to lose their jobs.
Journalist have to provide information and stories for the reader and make the newspaper and broad cast station successful and they fullfill their duty.