This website is dedicated to media ethics. Practical ethics.
It contains the largest collection of press codes of conduct in
the world. And the site is dedicated to media accountability systems
(M*A*S), first among which are press councils.
Its basic principle is that news media, in order to serve the
pub-lic well, must be free, free from distorting pressure exerted
by political or economic forces. To obtain, keep, increase their
freedom, media need to be trusted and protected by the gen-eral
public. To gain that support, media need to inform readers/ listeners/
viewers properly – but also to listen and render accounts
to them.
What is an accountability system ?
An M*A*S is any non-governmental means of inducing media and journalists
to respect the ethical rules set by the profes-sion. All M*A*S aim
at improving news media – but they are extremely diverse:
documents (like codes of conduct); people, individuals (like ombudsmen)
or groups (like a media-oriented NGO); processes, long (like academic
research) or short (like an ethical audit). Some are born within
the media (like a correc-tion box); others develop outside (like
a journalism review); and then some involve the cooperation of media
and public (like a press council).
What is a press council?
A press council, not only is the best-known M*A*S , but could become
the best of M*A*S , because it is a permanent autono-mous institution;
because it is (or can be) multifunctional; be-cause it is capable
of adapting to various cultural contexts at various levels of society:
all press councils differ from one an-other. Most importantly, because,
in its ideal shape, this M*A*S is the only one that (most often)
gathers and represents all three major actors of social communication,
the people who own the power to inform, those who possess the talent
to in-form and those who have the right to be informed. Proprietors,
reporters and public.
As a council has no power to force anyone to do anything, its
efficiency depends on the cooperation of all groups involved. That
association is as important by what it implies as by what it can
achieve. It implies that it is no longer normal for somebody to
use a news medium as he/she wants just because she/he owns it or
possesses political power. By setting up a tripartite council, owners
acknowledge that their employees are entitled to a major word in
the process - and journalists acknowledge that media users also
have a function to assume. That is a great step for democracy. |
