Journalists and Ethics: the quest for a collective voice

Abstract

The ethics of journalism is increasingly an area of scholarship, yet the role of journalists as workers is rarely discussed in this context. This paper explores the tensions between journalists' roles as truth-seeking professionals, as employees or factors of production within a marketplace, and as citizens. To this end, the paper traces the role of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the UK, the largest journalists' trade union in the world, in raising concerns about journalistic ethics. Particular attention is paid to the role of the union's Ethics Council at a national level; and the extent to which journalists have acted through their union to engage with ethical issues at a workplace level. The paper explores the impact of the industrial relations climate on journalists' willingness and ability to raise ethical concerns collectively. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the ethics of journalism can only be understood if scholars take into account the conditions under which journalism is practised and produced.

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