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Sound Advice
159/Nicholas Jones
The Ethical Journalist, By Tony Harcup. Sage Publications, £18.00.
DATELINE: 17/10/07After this summer’s soul searching over the alleged faking of television and radio programmes, the obvious title for Tony Harcup’s next book must surely be The Ethical Broadcaster. He has pulled together an invaluable compendium of the numerous ethical dilemmas every journalist will probably face at some point in their careers. A timely reminder, if one was needed, that public trust in the news media is hard won and easily lost.
While the argument over the need for an enforceable code of conduct ebbs and flows, journalists cannot ignore the fact that our behaviour and ethics are under greater scrutiny than ever before.
Journalists must not forget the essentials of reporting: for example, quotation marks should mean what they indicate, that the words reproduced are those which were used and that the quote does represent an honest account of what was said.
While I readily accept that journalists down the ages have taken advantage of anonymous quotes and justified them with formulations along the lines that their source was someone “whose probity cannot be questioned”, there is no doubt that lack of attribution has become more common in recent years.
When I worked in the local and national press in the 1960s, news stories required quotes from named individuals. While a greater degree of freedom was allowed for columnists and investigative reporters, the news pages were sacrosanct: stories without identified sources stood little chance of being published.
My one disappointment when reading The Ethical Journalist was to find how quickly Harcup skated over the insidious culture of the anonymous quote. His chapter on journalists and their sources provided a wealth of background and perceptive insight, for example, into events surrounding Andrew Gilligan’s infamous broadcast on weapons of mass destruction and the subsequent failure of the BBC and the wider journalistic community to protect the Dr David Kelly’s identity.
Harcup cannot be faulted on the soundness of his advice: all journalists should reflect on the importance of taking and keeping good notes and their responsibility not to betray confidential sources. But although he agrees that a reduction in the use of anonymous quotes might help increase the trustworthiness of journalists among readers, viewers and listeners, he does not explore the reasons why reporters have become so pressurised that, on some occasions, they seem to think there is no alternative but to make it up.
Whether it is the ubiquitous “insider” who is being quoted or one of the legion of anonymous sources in and around Westminster and Whitehall such as “Downing Street aide”, “Whitehall official”, “cabinet colleague”, “close friend” or “senior MP”, the tell-tale signs are pretty obvious; the quotes all have an uncanny knack of having been tailor-made for the story line and the lack of any attribution whatsoever suggests a fertile imagination might have been at work.
Why is it that trainee journalists from universities and colleges slip so easily into the world of the anonymous quote? My hunch is that all too often reporters are denied the opportunity to leave the office and rarely get the chance to make face-to-face inquiries. Instead they are tied to their telephone and computer keyboards and, in their struggle to meet ever-pressing deadlines, opt for the safety of non-attribution.
My heart sank when discussing these pressures with newly-hired reporters on a suburban free sheet. The latest edict from their editor was that instead of having to have two named residents to substantiate a local story, one resident would do and identification was not required. Is it any wonder that a generation of journalists have no hesitation when writing the line “an onlooker said…”?
More power to Tony Harcup’s elbow. He should strive to keep The Ethical Journalist updated and if he does venture into the world of broadcasting he might like to ponder on my own anecdotal experiences. When I began preparing reports for BBC television news in the mid 1970s I was struck by the meticulous way in which the editors stuck rigidly to the time sequence in which the material had been filmed; arrivals shots or something similar invariably came first followed frame by frame by subsequent events.
When I asked why packages produced by our competitors often opened with the newsiest pictures first, I was told that the BBC always tried to tell the story in the sequence in which it had happened, even thought this might not be the best way to grab the viewers’ attention.
As events would show, increased competition and tighter deadlines put enormous pressure on production teams, especially in edit suites out on location. In the rush to meet a live transmission, the nearest and most appropriate shot would have to do; there was no intention to deceive, the aim was simply to make sure that the best and most-up-to-date material got to air. I admit having succumbed myself to these very same pressures.
There was no BBC conspiracy during the 1984-5 pit dispute to show the mineworkers in the worst possible light. If, as alleged at the time, shots of baton-wielding police and picket-line strikers were in the wrong order, I am convinced it was an entirely innocent mistake; the pictures were still a faithful representation of the story line.
Nonetheless while the BBC might get away with putting striking miners and the police in the reverse order, the same cannot be said about the Queen. Yet again we are back to the nuts and bolts of our craft: if quotation marks appear in print they should have been used honestly and the same goes for the time line when reporting for television or radio.
Last modified: Wednesday, October 17, 2007
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Notices
Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
DOWNLOAD FREEPRESS NOW
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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Previous stories
Journalism Ethics
The History of Spin
Can we trust the broadcasting media?
US journalist freed after record-breaking jail term
Media regulation - battle lines drawn?
New enquiry into press self-regulation
Independent journalist facing jail
Jail for journalists
Landmark Lords Libel Ruling
MEPs campaign to protect sources
It Ain't Half Homophobic, Mum: DeGrading the BBC
European Parliament initiative on protecting sources
'Conversation with a child trafficker'
Reporting Torture
The Moral Mirror
Fake news in the UK
Source's victory for Ackroyd
City Slickers trial
The Rise and Rise of the Censor
Product Placement
Children's rights v. press freedom - who wins?
Children's rights v. press freedom - who wins?
London Bombings: Missing Questions
Alter-EU launched
Marketing Labour
US threat to protection of sources
Protection of sources: 'A denial of justice'
Astroturfing
When errors hit the information superhighway
BBC puts its house in order (complaints-wise)
The Blame Game
