As a former journalist, here’s what I was taught as the code of ethics (from the Society of Professional Journalists, of which I was a member beginning in college):
This is the classic code adopted in 1973, and was not changed or modified until 1984.
Look through the bullet points and note how many are routinely violated by today’s “media.”
In my view, the tenets listed in the section “Accuracy and Objectivity” are the ones which are most routinely ignored by advocacy journalists. The substitution of advocacy journalism for the old standards of “accurate and objective” has done the most damage to the reputation of the profession, in my learned opinion.
For more: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: We may be a divided nation, but we’re united in not trusting the news media
Yeah – I took an interest in journalism when I was in high school. Became a part of the school paper. Took a few classes. Read some relevant books on my own. Never did take any college courses, or work in the industry, but I got as close to an insider’s view, without becoming an insider. And, yeah, I’m talking 1970s, same as the pdf you link to.
Today’s media isn’t even a joke.
Of course, the popular media circa 1776 wasn’t a whole lot better than a joke. Buncha firebrands, fomenting rebellion – just like we have today.
Think about Mockingbird and the Church committee from the same time period and the revelation of the Intel community running the editorial boards within media back then. Now realize the gubmint doesn’t stop doing anything, they just change the names of the outfit breaking the rules. The reason why half the ‘journalists’ don’t read leaked secret docs is because it’s against the law for assets to look at things above their clearance level, and to report on it they have to break the law. Real journalism is getting harder to come by.
Geoff — this page details the most recent version of the Code; in the sidebar, there are links to the previous versions.
The current version contains more references to electronic journalism including the Internet, privacy concerns, consideration of long-term effects of reporting, continuous updating as more info becomes available.
Man with no name:
By way of background, my dad was a reporter on a metropolitan newspaper once upon a time but had a classical education at a midwestern church-affiliated college, which was NOT a journalism school. It was a time when a guy could learn the trade by starting out as a copy boy (without college) in a sort of apprenticeship. But my dad didn’t do it that way. After college he started out as a parttime “stringer” for a newspaper out on the Great Plains of the Midwest.
I, too, once worked as a reporter (as did my brother), but for a credit reporting agency, not a news “media” outlet. So, though I went on to other (technical) pursuits, reporting ran in my family and is still in my blood. And it ain’t an easy racket.
That having been said, I have always thought that the current plague of advocacy journalism became huge in America after the Woodward & Bernstein Watergate Investigation of the early nineteen seventies (though I think Richard Nixon got exactly what he deserved). But the temptation for advocacy journalism to influence public opinion has been around forever and has a storied past.
The real bug in the ointment now is the premium the media places on job candidates who are graduates of journalism schools (which are basically trade schools). They have been subjected to four years of leftwing propaganda and have no real grounding in morality or life experience. Compound that with media management with no scruples bent on pandering to an ignorant public for fun and profit and we have a real mess.
And, no, I do not know how to fix that.
How do we fix it? Maybe this: when I attended J-school, I had to complete several general freshman subject classes before admission to the journalism track as a sophomore, and then I was limited to 1/4 of total hours in journalism classes. The remaining 3/4 had to be selected from a sequence of general subjects — history, world culture, sciences, language, business. In effect, I was a general studies student with a “specialty” or minor in journalism. The school’s philosophy was that a journalist should know a little bit of everything, not just journalism.
So – skip over them. I find some of them humorous, some thought provoking, while others seem kinda silly. If you don’t get anything from them, just skip them. I’ll keep looking, thank you.
Paul, that’s a good idea. At least a couple of posters have written articles that were featured on the site.
A new form of ethics prevails among the leftists. A form based upon the assumption that the left is of superior intellect, superior culture, and of infinite compassion. In this new form it is perfectly acceptable to lie, distort, twist, and fabricate to dismiss and defeat those of us with lesser qualification (such as people of faith, patriots, and those who do real science).
The left fully believes the acquisition of power determines that which is ethical. Since they do not believe in an objective morality, they have no barriers such as honesty or conscience.
They should study Goethe. No system can be validated from within; a system can only be validated through an objective external truth. Without reference to that externality, there is only supposition and theory.
In other words, the left’s belief that their feelings of superiority justify all forms of malfeasance is conical, spiraling ever downward, like a flushing toilet, toward a septic singularity.
Much of what is published/broadcast on national news is nothing but opinion, conjecture and supposition. With little if any factual information delivered.
Unfortunately, even the foreign news sources I watch when I can, are getting just as opinionated and biased as the US versions.
Which is one of the major reasons I try to go back to the local news broadcasts if I can find them, or do my own checking into the actual facts.
Unfortunately, much of our populace doesn’t bother checking on the facts, but take what is put out at face value and as the gospel truth. Especially if it goes along with their preconceived notions or personal biases and politics.
I cant understand human so I can only watch what goes on around me. I have noticed this. There is not as much left over edible garbage in the trash dumpsters anymore. More people ride bicycles. And there are less Bush Lite cans in the ditch.
It’s just too difficult to feel sorry for their brand of mental illness. The unstable minds in the world of major news media spread their disease with enjoyment. I think most of them don’t realize how much of an embarrassment they are. It’s enough to make sure I keep a minimal number of tv’s.
@Prndll, The MSM isn’t concerned about any embarrassment because they really don’t Care. Plus at this point in time MSM feels they have their base firmly established and they really have no respect for those who are not members of their base, e.g., POTG.
According to a study by the University of Washington other nations such as Japan have a staggering 250 times less gun violence than the U.S. The UK has 100 times less, Germany 50 times less and Canada 8 times less.
All of the above mentioned countries do not have any less mentally ill people than the U.S. does so the argument that all we need to do is have more mental health care is a farce and Republican propaganda and prostitution to the depraved NRA.
And the other whipping boy by the Neanderthal Republicans i.e. violent video games again proves a total falsehood. Japan has more people playing violent video games than any other country and has 250 times less gun violence than the U.S.
Hours before the infamous and horrific massacre of very small schoolchildren in Newtown on the other side of the world in China a depraved maniac attacked a school and its children with a knife and because he could not get a gun even though some children were wounded none died.
The U.S. has only 4% of the world’s population but a staggering 50% of all the guns and when an 18 year old can buy an assault weapon say in the jackbooted state of Texas that is designed for only one purpose and that is to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time, it shows how depraved and sick American society has become and how it is being terrorized and held hostage by the gangster criminal Republicans who are prostitutes of the depraved NRA.
We CAN and eventually WILL stop the rivers of blood in our streets but it is a question of WHEN not IF when we finally come to our senses and crush politically the gangster criminal Republicans and their prostitution to the NRA and pass the same type of gun laws the rest of the civilized world has already had for decades and decades and their laws have proven they work and work far better than our total lack of such sane gun laws.
” …when an 18 year old can buy an assault weapon …”
An 18-year-old can’t legally buy an assault weapon in the US.
“… their laws have proven they work …”
Because criminals follow the law. That’s why they follow the 20,000+ gun laws in the US. There is no such thing as illegal use of guns because of the laws. That’s some seriously twisted logic, right there.
quote——–An 18-year-old can’t legally buy an assault weapon in the US.———quote
In today’s vernacular an assault rifle is a high capacity semi-auto weapon made only to kill multitudes of people in the shortest amount of time. You seem to be stuck in the past while shitting in your outhouse.
And by the way since 1933 no one can legally buy a full auto without registration and an in depth background check that can on average take months. The results of gull auto registration reduced crime with full auto weapons to a trickle. No longer do we have Mobsters shooting it out with Thompson Machine Guns in broad daylight. And I might add your lord God Reagan a Republican, the great satan outlawed the sale of new full auto weapons.
Try again you slipped and fell head first into the shithouse.
You never cease to make a complete fool of yourself.
Assault weapons are still not a legal term so just liberal slang devoid of meaning. Also lol you think full auto crimes were more common back when normal people could buy them. May want to see the rate of glock switch vs tommy gun murders lately.
to Void
Your statement is based on your prejudices and on pure speculation. In the dead hand of the past records were all hand written and many a time permanent and even temporary records were often lost , discarded or not even made. Contrast this with the computer world where records are made while they happen and today’s laws demand such records be kept so your speculation that there was less crime with full auto guns back in the day again is pure speculation.
I might also add that there has been a crackdown by the ATF on people who were selling glock switches. Its reminiscent of instances when people manufacture and sell illegal silencers because it does not take the ATF long to track down the people who attempt to make them and sell them.
No gun law is perfect but not to have them has proved that we are far better off with gun laws than not having any or having inadequate laws. The history of European and Asian gun laws certainly has proved how successful gun laws are compared to our current insanity.
Words empty words and nothing that will mean anything post Bruen, and after that time to claw back the 4th amendment to properly protect people’s privacy next on the conservative court 🙂 Don’t worry you can always move to Europe to live restricted if they will have you.
dacian, the DUNDERHEAD, well your “vernacular” definition is about as accurate as your posts. The term “assault rifle” is a media made up term to inflame the populace. The AR-15 and its clones were never made to kill of hundreds of people as you allege. It’s a sporting rifle which looks like the M-16.
I think that we have already told you repeatedly what we think of your “studies” which start out with a conclusion and go about collecting, often doctored data” to “prove” their conclusion.
For your edification, which you desperately need, a shooter with a modicum of practice can fire a bolt action rifle almost as quickly as a shooter with an AR. This is a fact which escapes you Leftist anti-gun radicals.
Your contention that the 1933 ban on “automatic weapons” slowed their use to a trickle is ludicrious. They were already a “trickle” to begin with.
Here is a hint for you. Laws don’t stop criminals.
Asshole —
“In today’s vernacular an assault rifle is a high capacity semi-auto weapon made only to kill multitudes of people in the shortest amount of time.”
By your “definition,” there’s no such thing. My statement was correct — an 18-year-old can’t legally buy an assault weapon in the US. That makes you a liar, as usual.
Journalistic ethics is an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Walter:
Yeah, like military intelligence is an oxymoron. Just another invalid general statement. There actually ARE ethical journalists. Unfortunately, they are in a minority at least as far as guns are concerned.
Walter:
You don’t know that. By its very nature, it is impossible to get a head count on ethical vs. unethical. If you think you DO know that, I’d like to see you quote the statistics and their source.
TTAG Shadow, yeah, I do. All one has to do is open their eyes and read what these “journalist” write. They have no clue about what journalistic ethics is all about.Journalism is supposed to be reporting FACTS, not giving opinions interspersed with some facts abet twisted.
Journalistic Ethics? What is that? A unicorn?
Something that doesn’t exist, today… 🙁
Poor Unicorn Whisperer…no one to whisper to.
Dummies stuffed with straw would have been more apropos.
Now there’s an oxymoron for ya!!
When, in actuality, it is the mainstream media that is as flimsy as cardboard.
Today, watched Alex Jones interview Stew Peters. That was fun.
As a former journalist, here’s what I was taught as the code of ethics (from the Society of Professional Journalists, of which I was a member beginning in college):
https://spjnetwork.org/quill2/codedcontroversey/ethics-code-1973.pdf
This is the classic code adopted in 1973, and was not changed or modified until 1984.
Look through the bullet points and note how many are routinely violated by today’s “media.”
In my view, the tenets listed in the section “Accuracy and Objectivity” are the ones which are most routinely ignored by advocacy journalists. The substitution of advocacy journalism for the old standards of “accurate and objective” has done the most damage to the reputation of the profession, in my learned opinion.
For more: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: We may be a divided nation, but we’re united in not trusting the news media
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-11-08/bias-news-media-fox-msnbc
Yeah – I took an interest in journalism when I was in high school. Became a part of the school paper. Took a few classes. Read some relevant books on my own. Never did take any college courses, or work in the industry, but I got as close to an insider’s view, without becoming an insider. And, yeah, I’m talking 1970s, same as the pdf you link to.
Today’s media isn’t even a joke.
Of course, the popular media circa 1776 wasn’t a whole lot better than a joke. Buncha firebrands, fomenting rebellion – just like we have today.
Think about Mockingbird and the Church committee from the same time period and the revelation of the Intel community running the editorial boards within media back then. Now realize the gubmint doesn’t stop doing anything, they just change the names of the outfit breaking the rules. The reason why half the ‘journalists’ don’t read leaked secret docs is because it’s against the law for assets to look at things above their clearance level, and to report on it they have to break the law. Real journalism is getting harder to come by.
“This is the classic code adopted in 1973, and was not changed or modified until 1984.”
Off the top of your head, what were the changes?
My hair, mostly. Turns grey and turns loose.
Geoff — this page details the most recent version of the Code; in the sidebar, there are links to the previous versions.
The current version contains more references to electronic journalism including the Internet, privacy concerns, consideration of long-term effects of reporting, continuous updating as more info becomes available.
https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
Man with no name:
By way of background, my dad was a reporter on a metropolitan newspaper once upon a time but had a classical education at a midwestern church-affiliated college, which was NOT a journalism school. It was a time when a guy could learn the trade by starting out as a copy boy (without college) in a sort of apprenticeship. But my dad didn’t do it that way. After college he started out as a parttime “stringer” for a newspaper out on the Great Plains of the Midwest.
I, too, once worked as a reporter (as did my brother), but for a credit reporting agency, not a news “media” outlet. So, though I went on to other (technical) pursuits, reporting ran in my family and is still in my blood. And it ain’t an easy racket.
That having been said, I have always thought that the current plague of advocacy journalism became huge in America after the Woodward & Bernstein Watergate Investigation of the early nineteen seventies (though I think Richard Nixon got exactly what he deserved). But the temptation for advocacy journalism to influence public opinion has been around forever and has a storied past.
The real bug in the ointment now is the premium the media places on job candidates who are graduates of journalism schools (which are basically trade schools). They have been subjected to four years of leftwing propaganda and have no real grounding in morality or life experience. Compound that with media management with no scruples bent on pandering to an ignorant public for fun and profit and we have a real mess.
And, no, I do not know how to fix that.
Shadow, that was an excellent post.
How do we fix it? Maybe this: when I attended J-school, I had to complete several general freshman subject classes before admission to the journalism track as a sophomore, and then I was limited to 1/4 of total hours in journalism classes. The remaining 3/4 had to be selected from a sequence of general subjects — history, world culture, sciences, language, business. In effect, I was a general studies student with a “specialty” or minor in journalism. The school’s philosophy was that a journalist should know a little bit of everything, not just journalism.
I’m glad Michael Jackson died.
Kids are fun
https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/IMG_20220208_154636.jpg …nuff said.
https://www.lalucedimaria.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Media-inganno-1.jpg
These “comic” depictions are getting worse
CC,
I disagree. Grace makes her points through drawings and well-chosen words for her characters.
So – skip over them. I find some of them humorous, some thought provoking, while others seem kinda silly. If you don’t get anything from them, just skip them. I’ll keep looking, thank you.
I am sure that if you can do better, TTAG will gladly print what you put up.
Paul, that’s a good idea. At least a couple of posters have written articles that were featured on the site.
A new form of ethics prevails among the leftists. A form based upon the assumption that the left is of superior intellect, superior culture, and of infinite compassion. In this new form it is perfectly acceptable to lie, distort, twist, and fabricate to dismiss and defeat those of us with lesser qualification (such as people of faith, patriots, and those who do real science).
The left fully believes the acquisition of power determines that which is ethical. Since they do not believe in an objective morality, they have no barriers such as honesty or conscience.
They should study Goethe. No system can be validated from within; a system can only be validated through an objective external truth. Without reference to that externality, there is only supposition and theory.
In other words, the left’s belief that their feelings of superiority justify all forms of malfeasance is conical, spiraling ever downward, like a flushing toilet, toward a septic singularity.
Much of what is published/broadcast on national news is nothing but opinion, conjecture and supposition. With little if any factual information delivered.
Unfortunately, even the foreign news sources I watch when I can, are getting just as opinionated and biased as the US versions.
Which is one of the major reasons I try to go back to the local news broadcasts if I can find them, or do my own checking into the actual facts.
Unfortunately, much of our populace doesn’t bother checking on the facts, but take what is put out at face value and as the gospel truth. Especially if it goes along with their preconceived notions or personal biases and politics.
I cant understand human so I can only watch what goes on around me. I have noticed this. There is not as much left over edible garbage in the trash dumpsters anymore. More people ride bicycles. And there are less Bush Lite cans in the ditch.
Gee possum, I hope none of those bicycles run over your tail.
It’s just too difficult to feel sorry for their brand of mental illness. The unstable minds in the world of major news media spread their disease with enjoyment. I think most of them don’t realize how much of an embarrassment they are. It’s enough to make sure I keep a minimal number of tv’s.
@Prndll, The MSM isn’t concerned about any embarrassment because they really don’t Care. Plus at this point in time MSM feels they have their base firmly established and they really have no respect for those who are not members of their base, e.g., POTG.
According to a study by the University of Washington other nations such as Japan have a staggering 250 times less gun violence than the U.S. The UK has 100 times less, Germany 50 times less and Canada 8 times less.
All of the above mentioned countries do not have any less mentally ill people than the U.S. does so the argument that all we need to do is have more mental health care is a farce and Republican propaganda and prostitution to the depraved NRA.
And the other whipping boy by the Neanderthal Republicans i.e. violent video games again proves a total falsehood. Japan has more people playing violent video games than any other country and has 250 times less gun violence than the U.S.
Hours before the infamous and horrific massacre of very small schoolchildren in Newtown on the other side of the world in China a depraved maniac attacked a school and its children with a knife and because he could not get a gun even though some children were wounded none died.
The U.S. has only 4% of the world’s population but a staggering 50% of all the guns and when an 18 year old can buy an assault weapon say in the jackbooted state of Texas that is designed for only one purpose and that is to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time, it shows how depraved and sick American society has become and how it is being terrorized and held hostage by the gangster criminal Republicans who are prostitutes of the depraved NRA.
We CAN and eventually WILL stop the rivers of blood in our streets but it is a question of WHEN not IF when we finally come to our senses and crush politically the gangster criminal Republicans and their prostitution to the NRA and pass the same type of gun laws the rest of the civilized world has already had for decades and decades and their laws have proven they work and work far better than our total lack of such sane gun laws.
Courts or constitutional convention otherwise your ilk can thankfully fuck off with your fascism.
” …when an 18 year old can buy an assault weapon …”
An 18-year-old can’t legally buy an assault weapon in the US.
“… their laws have proven they work …”
Because criminals follow the law. That’s why they follow the 20,000+ gun laws in the US. There is no such thing as illegal use of guns because of the laws. That’s some seriously twisted logic, right there.
You’re a pathological liar, asshole.
quote——–An 18-year-old can’t legally buy an assault weapon in the US.———quote
In today’s vernacular an assault rifle is a high capacity semi-auto weapon made only to kill multitudes of people in the shortest amount of time. You seem to be stuck in the past while shitting in your outhouse.
And by the way since 1933 no one can legally buy a full auto without registration and an in depth background check that can on average take months. The results of gull auto registration reduced crime with full auto weapons to a trickle. No longer do we have Mobsters shooting it out with Thompson Machine Guns in broad daylight. And I might add your lord God Reagan a Republican, the great satan outlawed the sale of new full auto weapons.
Try again you slipped and fell head first into the shithouse.
You never cease to make a complete fool of yourself.
Assault weapons are still not a legal term so just liberal slang devoid of meaning. Also lol you think full auto crimes were more common back when normal people could buy them. May want to see the rate of glock switch vs tommy gun murders lately.
to Void
Your statement is based on your prejudices and on pure speculation. In the dead hand of the past records were all hand written and many a time permanent and even temporary records were often lost , discarded or not even made. Contrast this with the computer world where records are made while they happen and today’s laws demand such records be kept so your speculation that there was less crime with full auto guns back in the day again is pure speculation.
I might also add that there has been a crackdown by the ATF on people who were selling glock switches. Its reminiscent of instances when people manufacture and sell illegal silencers because it does not take the ATF long to track down the people who attempt to make them and sell them.
No gun law is perfect but not to have them has proved that we are far better off with gun laws than not having any or having inadequate laws. The history of European and Asian gun laws certainly has proved how successful gun laws are compared to our current insanity.
Words empty words and nothing that will mean anything post Bruen, and after that time to claw back the 4th amendment to properly protect people’s privacy next on the conservative court 🙂 Don’t worry you can always move to Europe to live restricted if they will have you.
dacian, the DUNDERHEAD, well your “vernacular” definition is about as accurate as your posts. The term “assault rifle” is a media made up term to inflame the populace. The AR-15 and its clones were never made to kill of hundreds of people as you allege. It’s a sporting rifle which looks like the M-16.
I think that we have already told you repeatedly what we think of your “studies” which start out with a conclusion and go about collecting, often doctored data” to “prove” their conclusion.
For your edification, which you desperately need, a shooter with a modicum of practice can fire a bolt action rifle almost as quickly as a shooter with an AR. This is a fact which escapes you Leftist anti-gun radicals.
Your contention that the 1933 ban on “automatic weapons” slowed their use to a trickle is ludicrious. They were already a “trickle” to begin with.
Here is a hint for you. Laws don’t stop criminals.
Asshole —
“In today’s vernacular an assault rifle is a high capacity semi-auto weapon made only to kill multitudes of people in the shortest amount of time.”
By your “definition,” there’s no such thing. My statement was correct — an 18-year-old can’t legally buy an assault weapon in the US. That makes you a liar, as usual.
Journalistic ethics is an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Walter:
Yeah, like military intelligence is an oxymoron. Just another invalid general statement. There actually ARE ethical journalists. Unfortunately, they are in a minority at least as far as guns are concerned.
“Ethical journalists” are few and FAR between.
Walter:
You don’t know that. By its very nature, it is impossible to get a head count on ethical vs. unethical. If you think you DO know that, I’d like to see you quote the statistics and their source.
TTAG Shadow, yeah, I do. All one has to do is open their eyes and read what these “journalist” write. They have no clue about what journalistic ethics is all about.Journalism is supposed to be reporting FACTS, not giving opinions interspersed with some facts abet twisted.