Be Accountable
Auto mechanics are accountable to their customers and each other.

Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

In other words: Be accountable, honest, and fair with your customers. This is not a code of ethics for journalists; it’s just a summary of how not to be an sleazy, hypocritical jackass. These are rules for anyone who wants to be a part of civilized society, and they’re so fundamental that they shouldn’t even have to be spelled out. The fact that journalists have to do so, and to pretend that this list of basic civilized behaviors is a special Code of Ethics that elevates them above the rest of us, is a symptom of how amoral and disconnected from society they have become.

1. Must be familiar with using make-up.”

Paul, I suspect that few TV journalists have to apply their own makeup — they have people who do that for them. As an amateur actor with a few community theatre productions under my belt, I probably know more about makeup (depiste being male) than most TV journalists.

The original Rodney King beating was already faked, as it was run by the professional journalists who put it on the air. In order to bulldoze public opinion in the “correct” direction, much of the film was redacted – the part showing that Rodney King himself was not just an
innocent victim, but spent plenty of energy himself aggressively attacking
the policemen, and refusing to submit to their lawful orders.

When significant parts of a story are withheld from the public eye, that
denial of perspective is every bit as much faking as the creation of a
staged incident out of whole cloth. In the case of Rodney King, the citizen journalist who filmed the entire incident did no wrong – it was the ‘professionals’ who trimmed his raw material to fit their political agenda who basically lied to the public.

Was it the “Dr” himself, or the factchecker at the AJC?

[Editor: Be careful, there. We don't have any standards to apply to such a situation.]

There is no “accountability” of journalists in any meaningful sense. There is no equivalent of a bar exam for journalists. There is no licensing procedure for journalists. There is no minimum education level required, nor any particular special kind of training at all. Fill out an employment application, get hired at minimum wage or better, and presto, you’re a journalist. Or just take a pad and pencil, call some folks on the phone and do some interviews, and you’re a journalist, too. Think not? Read on.

The myth of journalistic accountability:

There is a Code of Ethics promulgated by the Society of Professional Journalists that offers some admirable ideals. Here is 100 percent of what it says the accountability of journalists is (check for your self):

“Be Accountable
“Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.

“Journalists should:
“Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.

“Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.

“Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.

“Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.

“Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

That’s all. Personally, I’d say that the mainline media rate no better than a D- on all scores. What the code means is that accountability is nothing but an agreement by journalists, whatever they actually are, to follow these rules. There is no sanction for not doing so. I presume that the SPJ could revoke your membership in it for failing to follow the code, but you can still be a journalist if you want. Lawyers can be debarred, physicians can be de-licensed, and then neither can practice, but no such sanctions of any kind exist for journalists.

Nor should they. The only good answer to free speech with which you don’t agree is more free speech. The First Amendment does not privilege “reporters.” The First Amendment protects equally everyone’s right to publish. News media outlets have no First Amendment rights that you and I or Joe Doaks does not have, nor do they have those rights more urgently.

I wrote a lot more about this back in 2003, from which the above is a short excerpt. See here.

“Woodward & Lothrop” was Dad’s little joke. The famous Washington Post “Watergate” reporters were Woodward & Bernstein. Back in those days, Woodward & Lothrop was an upscale department store in Washington DC.

Dad’s point — & I think he was on to something — is that when people say they want to become journalists so they can “make a difference,” what that means is that they have an agenda they intend to advance, rather than just getting all the facts right, spelling all the names correctly, & writing sentences with subjects & verbs that are in grammatic agreement, as in the old days.

Nothing stays the same. Often when things change, something is lost while something is gained. So it goes.

– Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.