Journalism and Classical Ethics (or Moral Philosophy of Journalism).

Journalism, in its constant evolutionary process and desire to meet needs of the audience in all forms available to the media, often faces ethical dilemmas and moral challenges. To be free and independent, as it’s ideally proposed, and accomplish its main duty, to inform, as purely as possible, the field of journalism needs a theoretical support for moral choices that constantly occur. Such a support can be easily provided by the philosophy of morality, or ethics.

The Information age and digital revolution raised hundreds of additional questions for ethicists. In last thirty years, world faced more controversies and challenges than ever before. The digital industry created knowledge-based society surrounded by a high-tech global economy that in a way changed every sphere of knowledge and related activities. This changes were crucial for journalism too, from the way information is collected, to the way it introduced to masses. Addressing this aspect, another important question needs to be answered: ‘Is technology-based society, with all advantages and disadvantages is out of reach of classical philosophy? Should journalists rely on classics and whether or not groundwork of ethics satisfy needs of modern media?”

Todd Gitlin, an American writer, sociologist, communications scholar, novelist, poet, and “not very private intellectual”, is the author of sixteen books. Now, a professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University sharing his thoughts: “Whenever I think about journalism, I’m always preoccupied with ethical questions, because journalism is a profession that has an ethical purpose.”

Philosophy (from Ancient Greek φιλοσοφία, literally translates as “love of wisdom”, living in accordance with wisdom, for many philosophers, means to live and die well).

Philosophy is an attempt to answer fundamental questions by using abstract thinking and analyses of other theories. Historically, "philosophy" encompassed any body of knowledge, sciences such as math, astrology, anatomy, psychology and physics developed a priori.

This phenomenon explains certain flexibility of the field and why it has capacity to answer diverse variety of questions and apply to different fields in any given fraction of time. This paper includes three main kinds of normative ethics, explained through multiple theories. Each theory offers advice that might help to target the points that are often missed by journalists. It is an attempt to explain benefits of the ethical approach over habitual guidelines following (SPJ and such) and application of analyses and critical thinking to journalistic decision-making. Important to remember that Journalism does not pursue truth in an absolute sense, but in a more practical and functional form than philosophy often attempts.

Among the most common fallacies, journalists often misinterpret truth, fact and objectivity – essentials of journalism duties. Subjectivity, bias and ignorance are equally dangerous for medium, media and audience. Field of ethics provides a starting place for the development of intellectual analyses and assessment applied to news stories.

It is necessary to establish definitions for terms that will constantly appear in paper.

Truth is the state of being the case or the body of real things, events, and facts ("Truth." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.).

Truth may conflict with many other values in mass media: public interest and censorship (Standing Rock, ND issue), privacy issue, stereotyping, propaganda, graphic images, taboos and values, aesthetics, conflict with the law and digital manipulation (Adnan Hajj photographs controversy), plagiarism (Jayson Blair scandal), fabrication (National Enquirer) and etc.

Knowledge is a justified true believe, according to Plato.

Objectivity based on facts rather than feelings or opinions, not influenced by feelings or philosophy definition: existing outside of the mind (“Objective.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.).

Ethics (from the Ancient Greek word ἠθικός, which is derived from the word ἦθος - "custom").

The field of moral philosophy involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics (Ethics. "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.).

Journalism, as complex practical field, could benefit from normative ethics, which theorizing potentially practical occurrences. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior for others. It is important to remember that the stand point of ethics is constant moral developing and progression; it is important to take in account complexity of life itself, especially in application to journalism, which makes an attempt to grasp the essence of life.

Moral standards are main subject of normative ethics. Using ideal standard for reasoning to analyze (potential) situation, considering all complications and then act accordingly. Three main theories of normative ethics include:

Virtue Theories

Began its developing in Ancient Greece, emphasizes the role of character and virtue in moral philosophy; developing good habits of character is a key to ethical behavior.

Philosopher Plato emphasized four cardinal virtues: courage, temperance, wisdom and justice. The theory illustrated by tripartite theory of the soul and Just city metaphor. Three parts of the soul: reason, spirit and appetite correspond to the society layers: rulers, guardians and workers. Justice in soul and city depend only upon order and well-maintenance between soul parts and classes. “Just as justice in the city is each part performing its natural role, we should expect the soul to be just in the same way” (Plato, Republic (434d).

Plato’s student and Alexander’s The Great mentor Aristotle argued well maintained virtues are meant to regulate emotions and that virtues are means of two extreme character traits and illustrates with 11 specific virtues:

The balance between reason and desires can be found by means of moderation that takes life-long practice; virtue becomes its own reward if done correctly. Human life is complete only if right virtues are cultivated, therefore, true happiness is achieved. Different versions of given approach dominated Western culture for centuries. Moral excellence, according to Aristotle, requires practice and theoretical studies; all virtues must be developed all together and create unified character. Contemplation, as the highest human activity (activity of wisdom), allows us to exercise our rational powers, which is also goal of human’s life (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book 10.

Duty Theories

Also called deontological or nonconsequentialist (since these principles are obligatory, irrespective of the consequences that might follow from our actions), theory is based on specific and foundational principles of obligation human beings have.

One of the most-well known duty theories is a right theory, originated by John Locke explains correlativity between rights and duties. Locke believed that there are certain natural rights given humans by god, such as life, liberty, health, possession and etc. Further in Essay Concerning Human Understanding author explains that rights are universal, equal, inalienable and isn’t a subject of change by any authority.

On the other hand, Kantian theory of duty depends upon only one principle of duty. It is a single, self-evident principle of reason that he calls the "categorical imperative." There are at least four versions of the categorical imperative, but one is especially direct: Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end. That is, we should always treat people with dignity, and never use them as mere instruments. The categorical imperative also regulates the morality of actions that affect us individually ethics (I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals).

Consequentialist Theories

Theory determines moral responsibility by weighing the consequences of actions, where correct moral conduct is determined solely by a cost-benefit analyses. It offers to take an action that simply is more favorable. “Consequentialist normative principles require that we first tally both the good and bad consequences of an action. Second, we then determine whether the total good consequences outweigh the total bad consequences. If the good consequences are greater, then the action is morally proper. If the bad consequences are greater, then the action is morally improper” (Ethics. "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2016).

Three subdivisions of consequentialism emerge:

Ethical Egoism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable only to the agent performing the action.
Ethical Altruism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable to everyone except the agent.
Utilitarianism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable to everyone. If outcome is hard to calculate, utilitarianism calls for precise calculation of the overall benefit versus harm of the action (Ethics. "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., Web. 26 Oct. 2016).

As it can be concluded, most of the SPJ Ethic Code guidelines clearly take their roots in classical ethics. For example, “Seek Truth and Report It” and “Be Accountable and Transparent” refers back to the virtue ethics. Being responsible, accurate and honest are virtues that were highly appreciated even in ancient societies. For example, as Plato argued in Republic, man's virtue is justice, it enables man to live with others and be happy and that injustice breeds chaos and unhappiness, therefore, justice is more profitable than injustice and that is exactly what journalism is seeking. “Minimize Harm” is dramatically consequentialist statement, and “Act Independently” very much an offspring of the duty theory. With all accountability and modern flexibility, SPJ code is a good guideline, but it misses an explanation of its statements, a gap, that ethics can explain and fill up. Broad explanation of ethical dilemmas enhanced with examples and other references is necessary for full understanding and proper application of ethical standards in real life. Even classical literature accomplishes it better, if reader has an ability to understand metaphors, irony and context.

Dr. Kim Pewitt-Jone, journalism professor at University of Texas at Arlington provided a feedback on updated SPJ Ethical Code on Society of Professional Journalists website, Ethics Code Revision Project topic:

“At the beginning of the second draft and in other places throughout the code, the terms "act ethically" and "responsibly" are used but not defined clearly. Because of our ever changing world, industry and the mixture of our cultures, there are many definitions of those terms especially the term ethical and its forms. I think this needs clarification.”

Abandonment of definitions potentially puts a big responsibility on a reporter that rather creates a room for misinterpretation and leaves decision-making up to one’s moral standards, which often might be very arguable and highly vary. Another critique commentary was provided by Don Stacom, a reporter for The Courant covering transportation, transit, New Britain, Bristol and state revenue sharing:

“This pointless exercise [SPJ Ethics Code] simply doesn't account for the realities of the modern journalism world. Our standards should not be lower, but now more than ever SPJ needs to acknowledge the elephant in the room — the hedge funds, venture capitalists, tycoons and corporate chains who own and operate mainstream news outlets are the primary (and inescapable) driving force behind the fall in professionalism and ethical conduct in our industry. Until their insatiable demand for lower standards is addressed, the ethics code — even the good original version that's in place today — merely puts more demands on the bottom-of-the-food-chain workers and mid-level managers who are powerless to change this tide.”

Moral philosophy offers answers on such questions as objectivity, privacy, confidentiality, conflict of interest and many other challenges that journalists face. Knowledge of ethical groundwork can create theoretical field that could potentially, if properly understood and applied, help to grasp the essence of ethical behavior and understand causality, developed by ethicists, philosophers and writers for thousands years. Especially for young journalists, philosophy courses could give more than just knowledge of the world; they give a deep understanding of how the world works, even how it should work. Normative ethics introduces moral values, and what kinds should be enforced and protected. In media ethics, these two sides come into conflict. In the name of art, media may deliberately attempt to break with existing norms and shock the audience. That poses ethical problems when the norms abandoned are closely associated with certain relevant moral values or obligations. The extent to which this is acceptable is always a hotbed of ethical controversy.

Carlin Romano, Critic-at-Large of The Chronicle of Higher Education and Literary Critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty-five years (1984–2009), is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Ursinus College since 2010. Now teaching a course called “Philosophical Problems of Journalism” at Annenberg School for Communication ASC University of Pennsylvania said, “You can learn all about these ethical theories and still be puzzled what you should do in particular situation, but I think you will more thoughtful about your choice if you have this education.” Philosophy, history, classical film and literature are tended to have ethical and cultural luggage within themselves, which explains why we ought to act certain way, in contrast with codes of ethics that often lay out rules, but they aren’t well-explained or well-grounded.

In his article “We Need 'Philosophy of Journalism'” professor Romano explains why philosophy and journalism, two areas of life that both claim they are so interested in truth, hardly talk to each other in United states, unlike in many European countries, “Add to this the historic insularity and inflexibility of philosophy—the field remains less diverse and intellectually adventurous than any of the other humanities—and the recipe for philosophical ignoring of journalism and new media was practically complete.” Among other concerns is an idea that two different fields create two different personality stereotypes for each other and contribute to “a vast and mutual reservoir of condescension” for journalists and philosophers. “The historic insularity and inflexibility of philosophy—the field remains less diverse and intellectually adventurous than any of the other humanities,” together with history of journalistic fallacy and philosophers’ inability or unwillingness to empathize created a downfall between two fields. “Both groups, I think, twist the screws into each other too reflexively,” claims writer, who worked in both fields over 30 years now.

Romano proposes that, “We need philosophers who understand how epistemology and the establishment of truth claims function in the real world outside seminars and journals—the role of recognized authorities, of decision, of conscious intersubjective setting of standards. And we need journalists who scrutinize and question not just government officials, PR releases, and leaked documents, but their own preconceptions about every aspect of their business. We need journalists who think about how many examples are required to assert a generalization, what the role of the press ought to be in the state, how the boundaries of words are fixed or indeterminate in Wittgensteinian ways, and how their daily practice does or does not resemble art or science.”

Great deal of the solution can come through education. Creating a seminar "Philosophical Problems of Journalism" at Yale more than 25 years ago that he has taught nearly 20 times since at institutions ranging from St. Petersburg State, in Russia, to the University of Pennsylvania. A course for both majors was divided into four parts: epistemology, political philosophy, ethics and aesthetics sections. In ethics part he talks about traditional meta-ethical theories and their practical application to the journalism field of studies. Another thing that gets a lot of attention is difference between general and special professional rules that apply to particular professions. The course is flexible; approach varies depending on what is happening in current news. This subject raises an interesting question about borderline between philosophy and journalism.

Another professor Aly Colón, who teaches at the John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., has a long background in news and journalism ethics, most recently serving as director of standards and practices at NBC News has another approach:

“My focus is on helping journalism students to recognize that ethics is an essential component of being a first-rate journalist. It actually is as important as any of the other skills they may acquire or use during their career. Ethics is an additional tool that can be used to determine the kinds of stories that one does and how one does them, in a fashion that will yield more accurate and authentic portrayal of the news that is being done.”

In his lecture, Professor Colón uses the text called The Ethical Journalist by Gene Foreman and different codes of journalism ethics. Using television and radio news for illustration and Guiding Principles for the Journalist by Bob Steele (SPJ Code of Ethics) and talk about ethical theories that can be applied to that as well. Also using four ethical theories, known as Kantian categorical imperative, the N-space thinking, which is also known as utilitarian theory from J.S. Mill, the Golden Rule and the golden mean defined by Aristotle in his lecturing.

“There are those who believe with the changes in the professional journalism and the technologies that come about that there is maybe a need for new theories or new ways of having principles, guidelines or codes. My orientation is that we benefit from having certain set of guiding principles that we could use regardless of the time, the technology, the people, the culture primarily because ethics don’t change, but situations do… My concern is when we start to change our principles or our guidelines. If everything that is new requires change then, I begin to wonder, what kind of foundation you have? If you’re not using the foundation that can take you pass the time, the people or the culture, then the ethics can become situational and you decide what is ethical and what’s isn’t or the circumstances do. So, I believe, having a good set of foundational ethical principles that you can use as tools to examine a situation that you addressing in journalism will help the coverage,” added Colón.

Todd Gitlin provided another idea for structuring journalism ethics in schools and sharing his experience teaching, “I think ethics should be integrated into journalistic education and shouldn’t be a separate consideration. I would integrate it into every class, because everything that journalist does is touched by ethical considerations. I don’t want to see it segregated and become a specialty on its own. Since I had start teaching in Colombia, I’ve thought some ethic courses, but it was simply a function of a bureaucratic arrangement, it’s not something I would prefer.”

His main concern is to teach young journalists about privacy issues, as Gitlin finds it crucial to moral journalistic behavior. He claims that there should be a very high bar, before private becomes public and journalists, especially young ones, should be mindful and respectful of private life, especially with advantage of today’s technologies. “I think people have a right not to be photographed, I think it’s immoral and it’s an ongoing problem. Yes, it gets more difficult as the means of communication become more complicated,” said professor.

The problem occurs not only in educational system, according to Gitlin, it also has to deal with the overall erudition of modern society and its representatives. “How do you have an intelligent journalism, if a president of the country communicates with people by 140 characters? It is a problem,” said Gitlin.

Another issue was raised by a press critic, media historian, and professor at Saint Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont where he served as the chair of the journalism and mass communication department from 2000 to 2006, David Mindich:

“Back in 1980’s when I worked for CNN for couple of years and then went back to school to study journalism history. I was very interested in the idea of bias and objectivity in journalism, as I saw a lot of bias at CNN, particularly around racial issues. Some groups were covered, and some weren’t.” He explained that history degree helped him to see “how objectivity unfolded in United States” and what have caused bias toward certain ethnic groups in mass media and how it preserved in country trough centuries.

Journalism ethics has potential to become fully expanded field, which won’t merely discern “right” actions from wrong, but it is more precisely a field of inquiry focused on examining the quality of our deliberations when dealing with moral dilemmas by deeply cooperating with other areas of studies. “It is about asking the “right” questions to best illuminate our duties and potential impacts on others. As such, ethics rarely provides clear answers about the best way to handle quandaries. Rather, ethics serves to help us highlight morally relevant issues and come up with optimal defensible decisions. This also describes the field of journalism ethics: while there are some clear rules and standards about how journalists should operate, more common are abstract statements of value that are intended to inform good behavior… And as we have seen, ethics is rarely black and white. We must juggle competing claims, weigh various possible harms, articulate often multiple duties—all in the course of just one ethical question.”

(Plaisance, Patrick Lee. "Journalism Ethics - Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Department of Journalism & Media Communication, Colorado State University, 06 June 2016. Web. 02 Dec. 2016.)

Research had shown that the question of combining philosophy and journalism in tendency of developing journalism ethics has gained popularity among faculties, researchers and other scholars involved in one, both or more fields. Another popular opinion supports the idea of applying classical studies to the journalism field, especially on the early stage, in universities.

For more adequate research and future study is necessary to gather data from journalism students to create proper statistic and have an approximate idea of their knowledge, in areas as philosophy, history, politics, economics, literature and etc., accomplish data analyses and review thesis statement if necessary.