Where is the Internet Journalist’s Code of Ethics?
The lack of copy editing for internet posted news stories is certainly cause for concern since more and more people report the internet as their source of daily news. As more people become citizen journalists through the internet and more publications take to the screen I am hopeful for the future of internet news, however it does leave us in this sort of credibility limbo as it is hard to determine which sources are accurate.
It seems that as long as there is no ethical framework or comprehensive set of do’s and don’t's the quality of internet news available to readers may become the irresponsible offspring of the once mighty news institutions. Allow me to elaborate.
Maybe the reason that the trend on the internet has been to veer away from copy editing and embrace the raw (often misinformed) journalist in all of us is that there is no code of ethics specific to internet journalism.
For print journalism, the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics keeps publications striving for accuracy. An infraction of the code could result in loss of credibility and loss of readers. Therefore the code gives a certain incentive to put the extra time into things like fact checking and copy editing.
I know that this is just one of the problems that the internet has faced journalism with, but does’nt it seem a logical place to start? I hope that as I am writing this the Society of Professional Journalists is developing an Internet Code of Ethics for internet journalism. The sooner it comes, the better for readers and journalists.
