MediaAcT

Index | Editorial | Birds-eye view view|
Opening the toolbox | Zoom-in on the newsroom | Media landscapes
10
fore, the practical hands-on knowledge that is limited to media
accountability practices in each researcher’s or journalist’s country
only provides a limited understanding of the overall context of accountability
and the range and typology of instruments that could
support transparency and responsiveness – in summary: the quality
of journalism as a whole.
Hidden aspects of media accountability
The cross-country analysis, with its transnational view, brings to
light, for example, a hidden aspect of media accountability: that
the differences in the evaluation of accountability instruments and
journalistic values are determined by the type of media organisation.
Hence, journalists who work for public broadcasting companies
in different countries have, in some regards, more common values
than journalists who work, for example, for a public broadcasting
company and a tabloid publication in the same country.
Another way to look at the existing media accountability system
is to focus on the changes that have been taking place as online
media have developed. Many traditional Media Accountability Instruments
(MAIs) in Europe are universal: press and media councils,
codes of ethics, ombudsmen. These instruments have been more or
less adapted to the online world. However, in addition to the traditional
instruments an increasing number of European countries are
using innovative accountability instruments, which are tailor-made
for the digital world, for example, media-critical blogs, correction
buttons and interactive complaint systems. These responsive online
instruments have the potential to increase the dialogue between
journalists and lay members of the public, information sources and
active citizens.
The collapse of the business models of professional journalism
have brought an important question for the future of quality journalism
to the fore: if professional journalism is increasingly of a
poorer quality, who is in charge of the watchdog role in society?
Although the media should be free and autonomous it is necessary
to balance the media industry’s powerful corporate interests with
the public interest.
The corporate interest – from a rational point of view – is to
produce news content as cheaply as possible. Information overload
challenges journalists’ information selection and interpretation abilites;
strong public relations sectors provide new pressures for journalistic
autonomy. At the same time, society demands responsible
media.
However, societal and technological changes in the global political
economy have made balancing these contradicting interests
increasingly difficult. A simple question is this: what makes a news
organisation strong and motivated enough to keep an eye on its
own actions, particularly when the economic interests of the media
industry and other business sectors are inter-related? The answer is a
professional ideology and a developed accountability system. What
is the state of media accountability across Europe and in some Arab
countries at present?
Codes of ethics: easy to recognise
The most visible traditional accountability instruments across
countries are codes of ethics and codes of good conduct (codes of practice).
While ethical standards mostly apply at the national level,
in-house codes or media organisational codes are directed more
towards certain occupations or jobs (e.g. managing editors’ code
Photograph: photocase/Bastographie
of ethics). However, all the codes declare values and principles
that aim to regulate daily practices and protect the interests of
democratic and civic society. As an example, let’s have a look at
the principle of ‘objectivity‘, which is present in most of the codes
of ethics. The principle of ‘objectivity‘ and truth-telling is often
expressed as practical guidance, for example, “In the case of a
conflicting story a journalist should take all different opinions
into consideration,” or “a journalist should carefully check the
facts from various sources...”. In different countries the number
of such codes of standards varies. In Poland, for example, the
four professional organisations have different nationally applicable
codes: The Charter of Media Ethics; The Journalistic Code of
Conduct; The Code of Journalistic Ethics of The Association of Polish
Journalists (SDP) and The Code of Ethics of The Association of
Journalists of the Republic of Poland (SDRP). In contrast, Estonia
and Finland only have one national code of ethics for journalists
and journalism.
In addition to the national differences, many media organisations
across the countries surveyed have their own mission statements
and editorial statutes, and newsroom internal ethics codes
aimed at managing employees’ professional values as well as their
behaviour on social media like Twitter or Facebook (for exam-