Ethics in journalism and why its important in news coverage:
Working with ethics is the best thing. Journalism is a field where the journalist should know their ethics and work according to that because it also affects the news coverage. A journalist everyday has to think what news will be published today? How to convey that to the audience? News writing is much different from other types of writing.
- Unbiased: A journalist while covering or reporting they should be unbiased for both the parties because sometimes the stories are much bigger than what it shows so a journalist should cover the whole story. Some stories are forced to hide by powerful people but the journalist should never forget its ethics while reporting because the audience trusts the reporter as they know they will tell the truth. How unbiasedness helps in covering the news? When a rape news are covered the reporter become biased while writing or telling the news they try to white wash the criminal if he has a powerful background.
- True Facts: Why do people are fond of reading news? Because it gives news from all over the world with accurate and true facts. Being true is the most important ethic for a person and journalists are the watchdog of our society so they should be true and honest to the society. When they write a nes they should be accurate and should provide true facts. Nowadays people are fact checking the news even though many websites are there. If an accident is reported and they are not sure of the number of people who died they should write in such a way that people will get an approx number but instead of that for hype they wrote a wrong number it will trouble both the reporter as well as the news company. People love to read spicy news but for that a reporter should not write wrong information.
- Plagiarism Free: Copying one other thing is very easy nowadays. As now there are many platforms from which you can read news. Many times you will find news that is plagiarised mostly on online websites. Newspaper editors are strict and they go through the facts and news whether it is plagiarism free or not but on online platforms without checking plagiarism they upload the news. Taking points from google is not bad, getting news from your source is also not bad but copying some other work and giving it your name is illegal. If a news article is found plagiarised strict action is taken against that journalist. Trust issue comes against the organisation.
- Avoid Defaming: While writing a news article a journalist should keep in mind that they cannot defame a person. Without defaming the person they should write because they cannot give their opinion in the news and they cannot defame a person unless and until they are proved to be guilty. While covering news on every side, first the journalist should collect then they should do an in-depth understanding and research on what they covered. After that they should build the news without fact checking they cannot defame anyone.
- Honest: A journalist should always be honest while reporting and writing or telling the news. “Honesty is the best policy” you will be studying this line from childhood. Many times a journalist comes in a situation where they start favouring the powerful people and become dishonest to the society. If a journalist went to cover a story of a political leader they should be honest and should write honestly about the story.
Nikita Das (Internship Trainee )