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News Media Innovation Reconsidered


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S.J.A. and Wasserman, H. (2010). Towards an open ethics: implications of new media platforms for global ethics discourse. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 25(4), 275–292.

      52 Weiss, A.S. and Domingo, D. (2010). Innovation processes in online newsrooms as actor-networks and communities of practice. New Media and Society, 12(7), 1156–1171.

      53 Whitehouse, G. (2010). Newsgathering and privacy: expanding ethics codes to reflect change in the digital media age. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 25(4), 310–327.

      54 Zaragoza-Fuster, M.T. and García-Avilés, J.A. (2020). The role of innovation labs in advancing the relevance of public service media: the cases of BBC news labs and RTVE lab. Communication & Society, 33(1), 45–61.

       Stephen J.A. Ward

       University of British Columbia

      The reinvention of journalism ethics for a digital, global media must be radical, addressing three daunting problems, the digitalization of media, the globalization of media, and the use of this digital, global media to spread misinformation, fake news, and intolerant ideology.

      Digitalization has extended the bounds of journalism ethics beyond professional newsrooms to the journalism of citizens, NGOs, political groups, and almost anyone with access to the Internet. Globalization means journalism ethics should be revised to make journalism a globally responsible practice. This means that codes of journalism ethics and journalism principles should help journalists properly cover global issues such as immigration and climate change, and evaluate reports that will circle the globe. Finally, the existence of unreasonable and intolerant groups in the global media sphere entails that journalists should conceive of themselves as social advocates, engaged in the promotion of egalitarian democracy and human flourishing anywhere in the world.

      Today, new forms of journalism arise, such as participatory journalism, entrepreneurial journalism, and civic engagement journalism.1 These forms of journalism set aside calls for the reporter to be neutral or objective. The journalist, or the activist who uses journalism as a tool, enters public debate with an explicit perspective and goals. Often, the goal is to persuade others and recruit citizens to their cause or organization.2

      In some cases, such as civic engagement journalism, journalists are ready to act with citizens to support social or political reform. They immerse themselves in the community to better understand the concerns of disadvantaged groups, even if this method raises questions about their independence as journalists.3

      Engaged journalism is studied by academic institutions,8 developed by labs,9 is promoted and supported by journalism centers,10 is the topic of books, and is a concept analyzed by journalism organizations.11

      With the “democratization” of media in the late 1900s due to the Internet, citizens and groups obtained the means to skirt around the mainstream press and publish journalistic pieces that ranged from biased, partisan tirades and conspiracy theories to informed analysis and advocacy—and everything in between. There is an increasing amount of unreliable nonobjective journalism, whether supported by governments or far-right groups, and much of it expresses extreme political views. Therefore, there are complaints about fake news or racist articles parading as accurate journalism.15

      Determining which report is true or false, and who is or is not a reliable information source has become a large social problem. The voice of the informed and fair journalist is lost amid a cacophony of angry, biased voices that grab attention and dominate public debate, not only online but also on mainstream radio and television programs. Today, both the citizen and the ethical journalist live in a polluted media sphere which imperils egalitarian democracy.16

      This emergence of engaged journalism raises ethical questions. There is the issue of how society should attempt to detox the polluted public sphere. This is a social question: How to reform media institutions, media laws, and systems of accountability? Also, there is another question that goes to the heart of journalism ethics: If media practitioners abandon neutrality or objectivity, what other norms define the ethics of journalism? Moreover, if professional or citizen journalists wish to practice their non-neutral journalism responsibly, then what norms should they follow? What aims? What norms would help to ensure that non-neutral or engaged journalism serves the public, publishing accurate material that is not sheer partisanship? What distinguishes the ethical engaged journalist from the unethical engaged journalist?

      As for falling back on existing norms, the problem is that journalism ethics today is fragmented. Journalists lack a consensus on what ethics is appropriate for digital, global media, and the new media create ethical issues never foreseen by the founders of journalism ethics. Also, there is not a lot of rigorous, comprehensive ethics material on non-neutral journalism to fall back on. One reason is that the ethics of non-neutral journalism was under-developed in the previous century. Professional ethics focused on how reporters should cover events in a detached and fair manner. Non-neutral writing, sometimes lumped into the category of “opinion journalism,” was a subjective enterprise which did not admit to a detailed ethic.17

      This imbalance is being addressed today as ethicists and journalism associations articulate guidelines for practice, such as how to use social media.18 But this is still a work in progress. We do not have a mature, systematic ethic for non-neutral or engaged journalism, let alone a consensus on what such an ethic should look like.

      To respond to the ethical challenges,