Ethics to Develop for the Post-Truth Era
Critical Media Literacy (CML) Skills
Training journalists to critically analyse sources, data, and media narratives. Encouraging skepticism towards unverified claims and fostering analytical thinking.
Epistemic Humility: Acknowledging the limitations of knowledge and avoiding overconfidence in reporting. Encouraging open dialogue and correction of errors.
Resisting Cognitive Biases: Training journalists to recognise and mitigate biases like confirmation bias, groupthink, and framing effects.
Ethics of Speed vs. Accuracy: Balancing the pressure to report quickly with the need for verification. Developing standards for ethical breaking news reporting in digital spaces.
Ethics in AI and Automation: Ensuring fairness and accountability in AI-generated news content. Ethical use of bots for news curation and dissemination.
Global and Inclusive Ethics: Addressing issues of inequality and marginalisation in global reporting. Providing platforms for underrepresented voices in the digital media landscape.
By blending traditional journalistic ethics with these emerging considerations, journalism can better navigate the complex challenges of the digital and post-truth era.
Media organisations must adopt a duty of care toward citizen journalists, including promoting safety guidelines, providing ethical education, and advocating for their rights. While some outlets, like the BBC, offer explicit guidance, others remain cautious, using citizen accounts primarily as sources rather than direct reports. Ultimately, balancing the advantages of citizen journalism with its risks requires an ethical framework that ensures fairness, transparency, and the well-being of all contributors.
Media inherently filters information through a variety of lenses before it reaches the audience, meaning that even the most straightforward news story is rarely a direct reflection of reality. Here’s a breakdown of some factors influencing media reliability, along with real-world examples:
- Psychological Censorship and Self-Censorship
Journalists often experience psychological pressure to avoid topics that might cause conflict or controversy, especially if they work for outlets with particular political or economic interests. This “psychological censorship” can be self-imposed to avoid a backlash, career damage, or audience alienation, leading to incomplete or cautious reporting.
Example: In some authoritarian countries, journalists might self-censor when covering government policies or public protests. Even in democratic nations, news outlets may shy away from covering divisive topics in certain ways to avoid losing advertiser revenue or viewer loyalty, as seen in the limited initial media coverage of climate change impacts due to the influence of fossil fuel advertisers.
- Suppression and Gagging of Journalists
In many regions, governments or powerful corporations impose restrictions on journalists, preventing them from reporting on certain issues or investigating sensitive topics. This is a direct threat to the truth and transparency that news should ideally provide.
Example: The murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi highlights the lengths to which governments may go to silence critical journalists. His assassination was an attempt to stop his reporting on Saudi policies, showing the extremes of suppression and gagging.
- Crackdowns and Legal Restrictions on the Press
Legal constraints are used worldwide to limit press freedom. Laws regulating what can be published, such as restrictive “fake news” laws or defamation suits, often serve as mechanisms to prevent the media from challenging authority.
Example: In Russia, strict regulations prevent the media from criticising the government or discussing protests. This restricts the public’s access to accurate information, resulting in a state-controlled narrative that misrepresents or entirely omits realities on the ground.
- Media Ownership and Agenda-Driven Reporting
Media outlets are owned by individuals, corporations, or governments, and their interests can affect the editorial direction of reporting. Owners’ preferences may shape which stories are covered, how they are covered, or what is omitted.
Example: Media conglomerates like Fox News and The New York Times, both based in the United States, offer contrasting narratives, especially in political reporting. Their ownership and target audience heavily influence how they present information, resulting in a divided view of events such as presidential elections or public health issues. [NEXT – Approximating, Representing, and Misrepresenting Reality]