RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM

Melissa Storey

NATIONAL UNION OF JOURNALISTS

The National Union of Journalists is the voice for journalists

and journalism. We are an exclusive union that represents a

range of professionals. We strive to improve the pay and

conditions of our members and protect and promote media

freedom and ethical standards.

SOCIAL AND CUTLER AWARENESS

As a journalist you will often need to write about certain groups of

people, and for some readers they may not have any first hand, or

little experience with these groups. It is important for journalists not to

be biased or create unhelpful representations of groups of people.

The NUJ has a guide on how to talk about specific groups in a way

not to harm anyone and so journalists know how to talk

This guideline is the ethical guidance sheet it is a guidance on ways

to write about Termism, Race, Asylum and Immigration, HIV,

Disability and Suicide.

Here we have the Do’s and Don’t

when reporting mental health and

deaths by suicide. This is a quick

round up of what to do and what

not to do. But there is a 23 page

guide helping you how to write

about these topics.

o When writing about mental health

words like ‘psycho’, ‘loony’, ‘nutter’,

‘madman’, ‘schizo’ and ‘bonkers’

should not be used.

o They have not been to prison

therefore they would be discharged

not released. “Avoid defining

people by their mental health

problem as in ‘he’s a depressive’ or

‘she’s a schizophrenic’”

You can find out more on the NUJ

Guidence for Reporting Mental

Health and Death By Suicide.

Suicide is another topic that needs to be looked at carefully when

reported in the media. For example too much coverage can cause

copycat suicide. “This risk is increased “if the coverage is extensive,

prominent, sensational, or explicitly describes the method”. (Source –

World Health Organization Preventing Suicide – A Resource for

Media Professionals (2008)) The effect on the suicide rate depends

on the amount, duration, and prominence of media coverage.”

The language used when coving a story like this should not be

described as ‘successful’ if someone dies, or ‘unsuccessful’, ‘failed’

or ‘suicide bid’ if it doesn’t result in death.

It is better to use the phrases ‘died by suicide’, ‘took their own life’,

‘ended their own life’. Or ‘attempted’ or ‘non-fatal attempt’ when

someone survives.

CODE OF PRACTICE1. At all times upholds and defends the principle of media freedom, the right of freedom of

expression and the right of the public to be informed.

2. Strives to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair.

3. Does her/his utmost to correct harmful inaccuracies.

4. Differentiates between fact and opinion.

5. Obtains material by honest, straightforward and open means, with the exception of

investigations that are both overwhelmingly in the public interest and which involve evidence

that cannot be obtained by straightforward means.

6. Does nothing to intrude into anybody’s private life, grief or distress unless justified by overriding

consideration of the public interest.

7. Protects the identity of sources who supply information in confidence and material gathered in the

course of her/his work.

8. Resists threats or any other inducements to influence, distort or suppress information and takes no

unfair personal advantage of information gained in the course of her/his duties before the information is

public knowledge.

9. Produces no material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age,

gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation.

10. Does not by way of statement, voice or appearance endorse by advertisement any commercial

product or service save for the promotion of her/his own work or of the medium by which she/he is

employed.

11. A journalist shall normally seek the consent of an appropriate adult when interviewing or

photographing a child for a story about her/his welfare.

12. Avoids plagiarism

CONNOTATION

The language used is a journalists most powerful tool on shaping our

views. This is why you must be carful when choosing your words as

different words connote a different meaning.

For example ”psychopath” gives intentions the person is crazy and

angry all the time. These terms could be put into the wrong way

when talking about a person who is not this.

The coverage on benefits and immigration in the media is usually

negative therefore the use of negative words to portray this is high.

But even the word immigration is linked to negative effects such as

‘failed’, ‘bogus’ and ‘steal’. The same is for benefits this is linked to

connotations such as ‘lazy’ and ‘hand outs’.

This headline from the Daily

Express has the word

‘immigration’ crossing the whole

of the front page, making it look

important and almost like a

warning. If the word was replaced

with something like ‘foreign

workers’ it would have a different

impact because the reader would

link that to be a good headline as

it is boosting the economy rather

than a bad thing.

This is an example on the guidelines for how to talk about certain

groups of people on the NUJ website. It tells you how you should

only use the word ‘Gypsy’ or ‘Traveller’ if it is accurate to the story.

Both these words have negative connotations to them. The same

with ‘Immigration’. Words such as ‘failed’ or ‘illegal’ should not be

used with the word immigration as it creates a negative portrayal on

immigrants.

ALTERNATIVE READING

Journalists usually have a specific audience in mind but they also need to

consider others that may come across the report.

Journalists should think carefully about the minority, subcultures and

victims that could read their report as they will have different views due to

their experiences.

Thinking about Stuart Halls Reception Theory (1980) will help include

everyone's point of view with them being Dominant, Negotiated or

Oppositional.

For example a story on immigration should have a balanced argument

because if it was portrayed to be against immigrants this could upset and

offend a group of immigrants and it will also portray, for the rest of society, a

negative representation.

WEEK 2

OBJECTIVE

Being a journalist you need to be creditable, trustworthy and reliable

so people will not question your reports, therefore you should be

unbiased, truthful and impartial.

Most newspapers have a political agenda, if this is left wing or right

wing. Editors will push stories that support their political view.

Whichever side they are more towards they will find evidence to

support their main agenda and ideas, and discard evidence which

does not.

Left Wing: The Guardian, The

Independent, The Mirror.

Right Wing: The Express, Daily

Mail, The Sun, The Telegraph.

Daily Mail The Guardian

The picture of Lee in

the Daily Mail shows

a smart young man,

serving his county

but on the other

article it shows him

defenceless and

making people feel

sorry for what has

happened to him by

showing respects.

The Daily Mail say things like, “The social

network’s staff failed to tell MI5 about the

‘graphic and emotive’ posts from Michael

Adebowale.” warning and questioning why

Facebook didn’t do anything about these

graphic posts on several accounts Lee

Rigby’s murdered had just 6 months

before the attack.

The guardian say, “The former global counter-

terrorism director of MI6 has said it would be

impractical and unfair to expect Facebook to monitor

messages for terrorist intent and report them to the

security services.” This says how they cant blame

Facebook for something like this happening.

ACCURATE

Names, dates, times, quotes etc. all need to be accurate. This means

gathered together correctly and have evidence to support this.

Accuracy is very important to be a credible journalist.

Failure to report accurate information can cause harm and distress to

the person/people that have been written about and this could

damage their public profile.

If someone feels they have been effected by an inaccurate report

they can complain to the Press Complaints Commission who will

investigate the case. If required they can force the publication to print

a correction or retraction.

Here are some examples of ways the press has had to deal with

complaints:

Wired:

“A previous version of this story incorrectly

quoted Dropbox co-founder Drew Houston

saying “anyone with nipples” instead of

“anyone with a pulse.””

The New York Times:

“An article last Sunday about the documentary maker

Morgan Spurlock, who has a new film out on the boy

band One Direction, misstated the subject of his

2012 movie “Mansome.” It is about male grooming,

not Charles Manson. The article also misspelled the

name of the production company of Simon Cowell,

on whose “X Factor” talent competition show One

Direction was created. The company is Syco, not

Psycho.”

The Sun:

“In an article on Saturday headlined ‘Flying

saucers over British Scientology HQ’, we

stated “two flat silver discs” were seen

“above the Church of Scientology HQ”.

Following a letter from lawyers for the

Church, we apologise to any alien lifeforms

for linking them to Scientologists.”

TRUTHFUL

Presenting the truth to people as a journalist is important, especially

when reporting. If the full truth is not given then their fictional words

could have serious legal and ethical consequences.

This rule is bent though. Newspapers do this to grab the attention of

readers and again to follow their political agenda. The most common

way this rule is bent is but changing statistics to make things seem

better or worse. For example universally it has been said “There are

3 million Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa.” But really there is

800,000 to 1 million. The reason this is said is because of one

American journalist. This journalist exaggerating statistics causes

wrong integrations about this group of people. This also happens a

lot in stories about immigration and benefits.

FAIR AND BALANCED

The NUJ code of Ethics specify that journalists should not produce

work this is likely to lead to hatred or discrimination.

To produce credible journalism, reporting topics should give a

balance argument of both sides and allow the reader to make their

decision based on the facts presented to them. But unfortunately

again this overlooked and ignored. Stories that are covered will

reflect on the political view of the news paper. This is handled very

unfairly in American journalism. With politicians in the party they

follow, in their agenda, they portray them with good, helpful stories.

And the other parties the reports are all against the work they have

done. This is power, being able to shape what the public heard and

their choices. This is why journalism needs to be fair and balanced.