JOURNALISM ETHICS AND STANDARDS
I have often written about the standards, or lack of, in Thai journalism. I heard one story earlier this week regarding a reporter who, upon discovering some potentially bad news about a company, contacted the directors and offered to forget the information for a fee. Surely that's blackmail in any other country? Sadly stories like that are far too common here.
Right now I am developing a basic set of ethical guidelines for our daily newspaper. The staff working on our new magazine work to a world class Code of Standards that runs to 12 pages. That's far too detailed for our own Thai newspaper, and I'm aiming to produce a simple set of four or five guidelines that will govern how they work.
There are many examples online from newspapers around the world, but all seem far too complex and detailed for what I need. I'll probably end up adapting bits from several newspapers and producing something that is achievable for our staff, and something that will earn the trust and respect of our readers.
2 comments:
It's another world isn't it. I think the journalists pick up bad habits from an early age. Some of our reporters are fresh out of college, and we catch them doing things like copying and pasting from websites or just making stuff up. I think they need to be taught the basics early on, otherwise it's an uphill struggle to get them to change.
You're so right Matt, and it's worrying that those graduating from journalism courses think it's fine to do things like lifting content from elsewhere. I guess they missed the lessons on copyright?
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