Memorandum by Professor Angela Phillips,
Goldsmiths, University of London
SECOND CALL FOR EVIDENCE
This evidence relates to question four, part two,
in the second call for evidence: "Are there any desirable
reforms that would improve the effectiveness of the regulatory
regime?"
Angela Phillips has been a practicing journalist
for over thirty years and has worked for a range of newspapers,
magazines, TV, radio and the Internet. She has been teaching journalism
for half that time on a part time and more latterly, full time,
basis. She is currently part of the Leverhulme funded research
group working on "Spaces of the News" which is looking
into journalism and "new media".
Journalism, ethics and codes of conduct—why
journalists need a "conscience clause"
1. The delicate task of making journalism
more ethical without damaging its freedoms is one that has so
far eluded policy makers. The period since the first Royal Commission
into the press and the establishment of the first Press Council
has demonstrated that voluntary codes of conduct have little or
no impact against the far more powerful pressure of circulation
increase and profit maximisation. Editors are after all employed
for their ability to get people to read the paper. Sex, scandal
and celebrity, sells newspapers as does the ancient art of whipping
up prejudice and stirring dissent.
2. Any attempt to legislate a fairer and
more considered journalism runs into the problem of implementation.
Laws that seek to protect one group of people will always be used
by others, whose behaviour really should come under scrutiny,
but who have the power and the money to use the courts to protect
them.
3. The journalists themselves could perhaps
effect change and re-focus the news media on the fundamental tasks
of informing citizens and encouraging debate, but only if they
are given the power within their news organisations to act according
to their own consciences, rather than always to follow editorial
orders.
4. In debates about ethics the role of the
ordinary journalist is too often subsumed within that of the editors
and proprietors as though those people who work for the news media
always have exactly the same interests, and the same power to
protect their interests, as do those who employ and direct them.
This fundamental error applies to the teaching of ethics on journalism
courses in colleges and universities just as much as it has always
applied to the policy makers who have attempted to legislate or
regulate the media.
5. The reality is that journalists are what
Bourdieu refers to as "weakly autonomous" (Bourdieu
in Benson 2005: 42). As individuals, their autonomy is circumscribed
by a steeply hierarchical employment structure, with an editor
at the top who is under constant pressure to chase audience ratings
or circulation.
6. The degree of autonomy experienced by
the individual journalist varies according to the type of publication
or broadcasting outlet and the level of their own influence (cultural
capital). Those journalists working for the "elite"
press have more autonomy than those who are at the mass-market
end.
7. Amongst mass market journalists it would
probably be true to say that only the highly paid columnists,
who are rarely chosen for their ethical standards, have any real
autonomy—and they are subject to summary termination of
contract if they should displease.
8. Ordinary working journalists are subject
to the orders of editors and can expect to find that their work
is heavily re-written by sub-editors under instructions from editors.
Those who find, and write, exclusive stories, which fit well within
the ethos of the news organisation, will be preferred over those
who stick to bread and butter, diary stories.
9. Successful journalists are those who,
over a period of time, internalize the requirements of the editors
and who then move into more powerful and more (apparently) autonomous
positions—the rest move on into other jobs.
10. Those working in television have more
protection from these pressures due to regulations requiring "balance
and/or impartiality" which counteract, to some extent, the
pressures to maximise profit that are experienced in newspapers.
11. How then can these "weakly"
autonomous agents be the key to improving ethical standards?
12. Some have suggested making them responsible
for their work by embedding ethical codes into their contracts
of employment. But this would be like holding private soldiers
responsible for the direction of a war. Nothing gets into the
paper without the say-so of an editor and nothing gets onto the
front page of a daily tabloid without the active involvement of
the editor. The bi-line over an article may not indicate who is
responsible for the slant and emphasis (and often it is the slant
and emphasis which creates the ethical problem).
13. Making individual journalists legally
responsible for what goes out in their name would often be unfair
and would almost certainly have the effect of decreasing autonomy
and giving editors an opportunity for scape-goating individuals
when more often it is editorial decisions which are at fault.
14. A more useful strategy would be to increase
the autonomy of journalists by giving them some recourse against
editorial edicts.
15. Journalists at the Daily Express provided
an object lesson in how much, on the one hand, their work is directed
and controlled by editors and how little, on the other hand, they
are supported if they decide to act ethically.
16. On two occasions, in 2001 and 2004,
journalists at the Express complained collectively to the Press
Complaints Commission about being forced to write what they believed
to be "racist" articles. (Harcup 2005) Having failed
with their first attempt to get a PCC ruling, the journalists
then took a different tack: "The chapel wrote to the PCC
asking it to insert a `conscience clause' into its code of practice,
whereby journalists who refused unethical assignments would be
protected from disciplinary action or dismissal." (Harcup
ibid)
17. The idea of a conscience clause is something
that the National Union of Journalists raised when giving evidence
to the Commons Select Committee on Privacy and Media Intrusion
in 2003. The committee recommended such a clause (Hagerty Bill
2003) but it was rejected out of hand by the PCC.
18. Robert Pinker, acting Chairman of the
Press Complaints Commission, defending this position at an NUJ
conference said: "It is not our job to be involved in disputes
between employers and staff." He also suggested that such
a clause would affect sales by making newspapers: "So sanitised
people will not want to read them". (Pinker 2004)
19. This view underlines the difficulties
faced by journalists who wish to speak out against what they see
as unethical standards. On the one hand they are assumed to have
the power to act ethically, on the other hand they are denied,
by the very body which is there to police ethics, the right to
act autonomously.
20. To act ethically absolutely requires
the exercise of autonomy. As things stand, the only realistic
recourse open to a journalist who disagrees with an editorial
decision, is to leave. This is not a decision that a young journalist,
with a reputation to build, is likely to take lightly. Nor, on
the other hand, would such a person be likely vexatiously to report
editorial decisions to the PCC because that would also impact
on their careers.
21. A conscience clause might not often
be used but it would operate as a means of providing journalists
with a small degree of individual power. It would also serve to
remind both ordinary journalists and editors that individual conscience
remains a very useful steer in a world in which maximising profits
has become the over-arching goal. It would certainly make a lot
more sense to those who teach journalism if they could say to
their students; "Commit the code of conduct to memory because
it will protect you from being forced to do something you believe
to be wrong." That small safe guard alone would be worth
having.
REFERENCES
Bourdieu Pierre, (2005) in Benson, Rodney and Eric
Neveu Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field, Cambridge Polity page
44
Hagerty Bill (2003) A matter of conscience British
Journalism ReviewVol. 14, No. 3, pages 3-5
Harcup, Tony (2005) Citizens in the newsroom, a paper
presented at the annual conference of the Association for Journalism
Education, University of Westminster, London, 9 September.
Pinker (2004) NUJ (Conference Report http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=872
accessed 31 October 2007.
January 2008
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