That said, although I welcome Bernstein’s appreciation of SPJ’s code, I think he may be implicitly portraying it more as a set of “rules” that can be “violated” (he refers to “violations”) than what we intended in writing the code: a set of ethical guidelines or principles that must be taken into consideration and weighed against each other in individual circumstances (especially when those circumstances entail conflicting ethical obligations). The Code is a document intended to facilitate the dynamic process of journalistic and ethical self-checking that every reporter, commentator and editor/producer should perform almost instinctively before disseminating a news report or analysis. It is also a set of guidelines to help news consumers and other journalists evaluate a news story’s credibility. What it’s NOT is a set of legalistic rules that can be unambiguously and definitively applied or “enforced” in all conceivable specific circumstances; a standard for litigation; or a convenient and pliable weapon for furthering some aggressive, extraneous agenda (“hoist[ing] a news organization on this petard”). I am troubled that Bernstein cites the code to combat specific journalistic practices that are not mentioned in it.

Peter Sussman
Member of SPJ’s Ethics Committee and a co-author of the SPJ Code of Ethics

We can and should grill the police on why this person is “of interest.” We should clarify our language to indicate whether this person is a potential witness, a potential victim or a potential suspect.

However, I find it rather more annoying that we then behave so cavalierly with the language in the rest of a crime story. If I see one more time that someone was “arrested for murder”… People are not “arrested for” anything, because that presupposes guilt. They are “charged with” a specific crime, be it homicide or jaywalking. Surely enough, the legalistic machinations of felony charges don’t always describe what the person has done. Therefore, in my stories a person is charged with a crime under the law. They are accused of doing XYZ that led to the charge.

As journalists, we need to be cognizant of the power of language, and when the powers that be attempt to obfuscate it, we must clarify it to present the most balanced story – in fact AND in language – to the reader.

I can see why you don’t waste your time blogging about a cabal of 400 prominent journalists holding a private forum on current events and news with leftwing political operatives and leftwing bloggers from February 2007 to June 2010, and how that group pressured participating journalists not to report anything negative about a candidate for a party’s nomination and Presidential campaign! When all the “cool kids” in mainstream journalism didn’t want to run afoul of the popular group and report anything negative about a guy.

Could the lack of reporting on that particular candidate’s (and, oh wow, President) extremely “progressive” (if you want to stop short of Marxist/Leftist) views now that they’re put into action be why he’s not very popular outside the “progressive” base?

Maybe you could do a piece on Lindsay Lohan going to jail and the news coverage?

Unfortunately, law enforcement came out of this just fine since they never called Jewell a suspect, merely a “person of interest.” Didn’t take long for other police agencies to figure out this is an excellent way to use the news media to make suspects squirm without actually charging them with a crime.

Every time we, in the news media publish or read this in our newscasts, we enable this behavior, in the process trampling on the rights of individuals not formally charged with any crime.

- Posted by Irwin Gratz, member of SPJ Ethics Committee