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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

These forms of journalism do not embrace the traditional ideal of journalistic disengagement or detachment from their audiences, financial sources, their citizens, and their nation’s political system.⁴ Instead, they embrace various methods of social expression and engagement. They use methods of funding that reduce the editorial distance between journalists and revenue sources, e.g., citizen and group donations, philanthropic individuals, or politically engaged civic societies.⁵ Not all of this engaged journalism is biased, or politically extreme. A significant amount is thoughtful, informed, and regularly wins awards for journalistic excellence.⁶ Some of the best and most informative sources on human rights, for example, are to be found on NGO online sites.⁷

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

Non-neutral journalism, criticism of detachment, and activist journalism are not new. Non-neutral journalism was one of the first forms of modern journalism as a periodic news press emerged in seventeenth-century Europe. The new editors produced newsbooks redolent with advocacy and partisan political journalism—royalist versus non-royalist newspapers, then conservative versus liberal newspapers.¹² However, with the mass commercial press in the early 1900s, neutral reporting, especially in North America, became an ideal, and was separated from editorial opinion. Neutrality and objectivity were central principles of many of the first explicit journalism codes of ethics.¹³ In the United States and then in Canada, the idea of journalists as neutral or detached reporters striking a balance between viewpoints became an influential model for good reporting. North America journalism ethics became a professional ethic of “news objectivity” where news and opinion were strictly divided and the reporter’s job was to neutrally present “just the facts.” News objectivity was never as robust or popular in Europe yet the ideas of neutrality, factuality, balance, and fairness found their way into numerous European codes of journalism ethics, especially in the guidelines for public broadcasters.¹⁴

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?

It can seem that the answer to a polluted public sphere is for journalists to follow existing norms for responsible journalism. Or, they could avoid doing non-neutral journalism and regard the engaged writers online as not “really” journalists but advocates. When the first online journalism appeared in the late 1900s and early 2000s, with its opinions and perspectives, this attitude prevailed. Many professional journalists dismissed it as subjective blogging, and not journalism at all. This conservative resistance to new journalism is unhelpful today as non-neutral journalism grows.

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, journalism ethics should reflect on three levels:

1 Reform of the moral ideology of journalism:19 How should we re-conceive journalism’s ethical role and aims in a global media era?

2 Reform of the “content” of journalism ethics: What new guidelines and practices are needed to guide responsible journalism, and to oppose anti-democratic groups?

3 Reform of media institutions and structures: How can journalists, citizens, and civic groups, locally and globally, come together to detox the public sphere, improve mechanisms of media accountability, and put pressure on unethical media practitioners?

This chapter works on level (1), the philosophical level. It proposes a way to conceptualize journalism as both engaged and objective. I call it democratically engaged journalism. It is a “third way” between partisan and neutral journalism. Once this moral ideology is constructed, one can get to work on levels (2) and (3).

The chapter defines democratically engaged journalism, using a continuum of kinds of journalism. Then it considers possible objections. It concludes by identifying four duties of democratically engaged journalism.