Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Journalism Ethics

What are journalism ethics?

Ethics are the guiding values, standards and responsibilities of journalism. At NBCU News Group, the following principles act as the foundation of ethical journalism:

Seek the truth and be truthful in your reporting. Your reporting should be accurate and fair. Ensure that the facts you gathered are verified, sources are attributed and context is provided. Journalists should be bold in seeking and presenting truths to the public, serving as watchdogs over public officials and holding the powerful accountable.

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Ensure the safety and dignity of all. While gathering information, weigh the public’s need to know against the potential harm it could cause to the people involved in the story. Be considerate and respectful when dealing with children, victims of crime, people from marginalized communities and those unable to give consent.

Avoid conflicts of interest. Refuse any gifts, favors or special treatment from interested parties. Resist pressure from anyone who wants to influence the story or the audience. Be candid about any unavoidable conflicts of interest.

Maintain transparency. Journalists should be clear about their ethical practices to build trust with their audience. Make sure any mistakes are acknowledged and corrected. Tell the audience where your information came from and how it was verified. Never plagiarize. Images and content from others’ work must always be attributed and verified.

Why are journalism ethics important?

Your integrity, credibility and how you treat people are critical to your ability to do your job as a journalist. They are your calling card. If people don’t trust you, your reporting won’t be taken seriously. Your conduct not only impacts your work as an individual but also the news organization you work for and the field of journalism as a whole.

What is biased reporting?

Biased reporting happens when journalists subtly or overtly insert their personal opinions into their work. By distorting or misrepresenting facts, or by only telling one side of a story, a biased journalist presents their perception of the facts as the truth rather than the plain truth.

Journalists can also feel pressure to create biased content if their news organizations function under the guidance of political or corporate interests. Biased reporting can compromise ethical standards and hurt the public’s trust in a journalist or news organization.

What steps can you take to avoid bias in journalism?

The best approach to avoid bias in your work is to understand and provide the necessary context to the story. To help you sketch out the context, answer these questions as you gather information:

Pursue all possible angles in your story to understand the complete context. Double-check the motives of your reporting with your managers. Ask yourself why you chose a certain source over another or selected a certain image above the rest. Your answers to these questions will help expose any hidden biases.

Don’t we all have some level of bias?

Say you are gathering facts to build your story. You talk to witnesses and pore over documents. As you write your story, you pick and choose what information to use and leave out. These choices are governed by your background, what you find interesting and what you think about your intended audience and the overall environment in which you are reporting. Your choices are also affected by your news organization’s mission and business model. These choices add biases to your story.

As an ethical reporter, your job is to comb through your work and be honest about how this bias affects the story you’re telling. A newsroom where editors, fact-checkers and colleagues of differing backgrounds read over your work can also help you evaluate and manage bias.

How do journalists ensure accuracy?

Provide the correct context. Context is a description of the conditions under which something occurs. Putting raw facts into context gives the audience a frame of reference to better understand why the story matters.

Corroborate facts. Corroborate your reporting by finding evidence that reasserts or confirms it — like data, documents, witnesses or historical context. When necessary, other reputable outlets’ reporting can be cited as long as their sourcing is clear and has been corroborated. It’s best to get information from two independent, credible sources. It is always preferable that you do your own original reporting.

Avoid misrepresentation. Verify and cross-check all of your facts to reduce the chances of information being presented out of context, unverified, distorted or misrepresented. Let your audience know what you know as clearly as possible by presenting the facts as they are. Be transparent about what you don’t know. Do not let your assumptions or anyone else’s take the place of facts.

What are the ethics around interviewing journalism sources?

Should journalists seek the subject’s permission before recording audio or video? Journalists should get their subjects’ approval before they begin recording video, audio or phone interviews, and let them know when they have finished recording.

However, there are times when this method won’t produce information critical to the public and secret recordings might be helpful. In these situations, ethics intersects with the law.

Some states have “one-party consent” laws, where it is legal to secretly record a conversation as long as at least one party involved in the conversation knows it’s being recorded. Other states, however, have “two-party consent” laws, which require all parties to consent to the recording of conversations. It is the journalist’s responsibility to understand where they stand both ethically and legally — and if they do not, to talk it over with a manager and consult with legal counsel before moving forward.

What if your source requests your interview questions in advance? Interview subjects sometimes ask for questions in advance or request that certain issues be avoided. Journalists should never give exact questions to an interviewee in advance because it can skew the information they gather. When the subject makes advance questions a requirement for the interview, the best option is to give them a list of general topics of discussion rather than the actual questions you’ll ask. 

If an interview subject asks to avoid certain issues, journalists should not agree to any ground rules. But if the interviewee runs into a question they are unwilling to answer, they could simply explain why or say they prefer not to comment.

Should journalists pay for interviews? The news industry is built on the free exchange of ideas; information and access should never be purchased. The truth is not a monetary resource, and sources who request payment are unlikely to give the full truth.

Do reporters need to inform interviewees that their comments will be published? It is possible that many sources don’t know what they’re getting into when they agree to an interview. Journalists should get permission to publish interviews from their sources. 

How should journalists behave while covering traumatized individuals? Journalists must prioritize the well-being and safety of their sources when reporting on traumatic events. News moves quickly, and some journalists can get caught up in the need to keep up with developments. But the need for gathering the most up-to-date information should never come before the needs of someone traumatized by the event. Journalists should never harass or pressure trauma survivors for information, no matter how important it is for the story — respect their right to say no.

Is the information contained in an interview “on the record,” “off the record” or “on background”? Source deals are legally binding contracts. It is always best to use clear, simple language and avoid phrases that may have different meanings to different people.

Please note these Associated Press definitions:

• On the record: You can cite the source by name and use the information they provide without caveats.
• Off the record: You can’t publish the information a source is giving you.
• On background: The information can be published under certain conditions negotiated with the source. Usually, these sources don’t want their names published but will agree to a general description of their position that doesn’t specifically identify them.

What are the ethics around using social media in your reporting?

Use social media content wisely. Newsgathering from social media requires the same diligence as other forms of newsgathering. For example, do not cite anonymous posts on social media sites, but use the information there to guide the newsgathering process.

Whenever possible, follow up offline. Clarify and confirm information gathered online via telephone and in-person interviews whenever possible. If a social media post is newsworthy, talk to the person who posted it to see if they took the photo or video and experienced it firsthand and to learn any further details.

Use images posted online with caution. When considering whether to use photos and videos posted online, verify their accuracy, and when in doubt, don’t use them. Images can be manipulated or falsely repurposed. Here are some questions to consider:

• When was it posted?
• Does the image or video match what has been distributed by professionals?
• Is it original work or a copy?
• Is this individual legally able to distribute the work, and have they given you permission to use the materials?

Don’t spread unconfirmed information. Let readers know what has been confirmed or denied. If varying accounts exist, reach out to other sources or authorities to confirm and then report.

Respect privacy settings. Journalists should verify the privacy settings on social media before publishing. Verify who posted the material on the page and whether it is still appropriate to use. Check if the material is likely to intrude on anyone’s privacy, grief or distress while considering whether the information is in the public interest or not.