Abstract
Drawing from 420 surveys addressed to news media practitioners, 30 in-depth interviews with media executives and 6 focus groups, this article focuses on the institutional dimensions of ethics in journalism and explores the way in which ethical standards are perceived by journalists and other representative groups involved in Spanish news media. The data show that participants ascribe moral obligations to journalistic institutions. Interviewees emphasise the predominance of market-driven interests over ethical values as one of the main threats to journalism. However, differences between the perceptions of journalists and media executives reveal that the latter believe that journalistic ethics pertain to individual journalists.
No doubt, the behavior of individual journalists, in both moral and practical terms, could stand improvement. But that is true for everyone. Without attention to how the behavior of the corporations that create such a troublesome environment for journalism could be improved, solutions are unlikely at best.
Introduction
Ethical journalism is becoming increasingly difficult in a profession undergoing deep technological and economic changes (McBride and Rosenstiel, 2014; Phillips, 2010; Phillips et al., 2010; Singer, 2010). An argument shared by many recent studies about the crisis and future of journalism (McChesney and Pickard, 2011; Meyer, 2009; Starr, 2009) is that these changes are detracting from the ethical nature of the profession (the set of values that guide professional practice towards excellence) and link this ethical nature to commitments vital for sustaining our democratic societies. This view has been reinforced by the professional anxiety resulting from economic pressures, such as the fall in advertising income, staff cuts in traditional newspapers, the lack of financial robustness in new journalistic ventures on the Internet or the obsession with ‘web metrics’.
This dominant discourse within the ‘crisis in journalism’ (Alexander et al., 2016; Franklin, 2012) is not the only possible state of the art of the profession. Nonetheless, siding with this most pessimistic argument enables us to posit the following thought: if professional ethics are threatened by the media structures that were created to preserve them – public and private journalistic institutions – then we must rethink the organisational aspects that ensure the best professional practices in a dynamic domain.
The most recent report of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media of the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council entitled ‘Media responsibility and ethics in a changing media environment’ (Doc. 13803/rapporteur: Volodymyr Ariev/8 June 2015) proposes the implementation of media ethics through a multilevel approach that takes into account four interrelated levels: ‘individual journalist’, ‘institution in which the journalists works’, ‘professional and legal environment’, and ‘social and cultural environment’. The report urges an examination of ‘the importance of a working environment that protects and respects professional standards’ and points out that poor professional standards were the main reason for the phone-hacking scandal and the failure of the British newspaper ‘News of the World’ – as reported in the Leveson Inquiry (p. 12).
This article aims to emphasise the institutional dimension of journalistic ethics by exploring how organisational ethics are perceived and assessed by journalists, media executives and other representative groups in news media corporations. Using an organisational ethics approach, this article analyses empirically the perception that professional journalists have of the ethos, or the ethical culture, of news organisations in Spain. In the first section, we bring recent theorising from business and journalism ethics to anchor the moral commitments of journalism in the organisational structures of journalistic institutions. In the following sections, we present and examine data from a national R+D+i project on ‘Professional ethics and press excellence: the implementation and consolidation of ethical practices in the business of journalism’ (Deontología y excelencia informativa: implantación y consolidación de prácticas éticas en la empresa periodística, in the original Spanish). 1 Designed under the theoretical parameters of organisational ethics, data in this project were collected from a total of 420 journalists from news organisations in Madrid. The survey was complemented with information from 30 in-depth interviews of media executives and business professionals, as well as six discussion groups that were created around participants representing the various groups involved in the news business (journalists, user associations, trade unionists, managers, directors and advertisers). The data were thus gathered using complementary quantitative and qualitative methods to obtain opinions from journalists, media executives and other groups involved in the news business.
An organisational ethics approach to journalism
Classical media sociology into how journalists perceive the news organisations they work for has analytically focused on social factors – such as newsroom routines and journalist–politician relations – as a determinant of journalistic practice (Berkowitz et al., 2004; Patterson and Donsbach, 1996; Shoemaker and Reese, 1996; Whitney et al., 2004). From this analytical point of view, such sociological research examines social structures and processes that constrain journalistic practices, but overlooks the cultural structure in which news organisations (and broadly speaking, all organisations) are embedded (Alexander, 2003; Jacobs, 2009).
Comparative studies on the perceptions of journalists have gradually incorporated the ethical culture of journalism as a relevant factor of influence (Hanitzsch et al., 2011; Mellado and Humanes, 2012; Plaisance et al., 2012; Rodríguez-Martínez et al., 2013). Some of these works have reassessed the role of the ethical values that transcend the individual practices of journalists. For example, Hanitzsch et al. (2011) show that ethical ideals such as impartiality, credibility or the verification of information go beyond the individual sphere and specific cultures of journalism to form part of a system of values that are common to diverse journalism cultures. As Hanitzsch et al. (2011) observe, ‘the concept [journalism culture] captures the field of journalism as being constituted and reaffirmed by a set of culturally negotiated professional values and conventions that operate mostly behind the backs of individual journalists’ (p. 273). Plaisance et al. (2012) argue that contemporary reflection on journalism ethics ‘largely implies a simultaneous individual- and societal-level focus’ (p. 642).
Various studies have empirically tested the perceptions of journalists on aspects of the following: professional ethics (Herscovitz, 2004; Kerridge et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2015; Skovsgaard et al., 2013), the ethical performance of journalists on specific events (Andén-Papadopoulos and Pantti, 2013; Fahmy and Johnson, 2005), and perceptions of traditional ethical values in a changing digital scenario (Friend and Singer, 2015; Singer and Ashman, 2009). However, there is little literature on how journalists perceive ethics in their own organisations and how these perceptions may differ from, or resemble, those of managers, media executives and other parties involved in news media processes and outcomes.
Studies in business ethics have fostered a conception of the company as a moral agent, endowed with a group conscience and its own intentionality, and whose behaviour is consequently subject to moral scrutiny (Melé, 2012). However, journalistic organisations seem to resist an institutional consideration of ethics. Journalism, a profession closely linked to the work of writing and authorship, has relegated the debate of ethical issues to the autonomous sphere of the individual journalist (Harcup, 2014; Wilkins, 2014). Harcup (2014) shows how the tendency to blame unethical individual journalists is illustrated in the recent flagrant hacking scandal at the News of the World newspaper. After the first phone hacking cases came to light, Harcup argues, Murdoch and his supporters spent years blaming a single ‘rogue’ reporter. According to Harcup, it took a very long time for other media, and administrative institutions, to reveal and blame the involvement of the entire newspaper organisation.
Scholarship on journalism ethics has been debating individual, organisational and corporate logics (Adam et al., 2004; Harcup, 2002, 2014; Wilkins, 2014). On one side, we find a reasoning that attributes the moral obligation of the individual journalist (Adams, 2004; Hargreaves, 2003, cited in Harcup, 2014). According to this view, the individual journalist is the moral subject responsible for ethical or unethical behaviour. Professional practice corresponds to a profession with a strong moral content in which the journalist–author establishes a social contract with his or her audience-readership that commits that person to a series of obligations such as verification, thoroughness and analysis. In this vein, Adam (2004) affirms that ‘journalists should be considered first as authors and the consideration of their ethical obligations should therefore be construed in relation to the activity of authorship and the creation of individual journalistic texts’ (p. 240).
On the other side of the debate, the corporate conception locates ethical issues in the context of the large political, commercial and media structures that the individual journalist encounters when doing his or her job. The moral problems are mainly posited as conflicts of interests involving media companies, owners and governments and other spheres of power in society. If, as Cohen (2004) argues, media organisations, motivated by their interest in maximising profits, lower independent and democratic journalistic standards by yielding to political-corporate power, then little good can be expected from individual journalists following ethical codes to avoid conflicts of interest.
Between these two extremes, we find the theorising of organisational ethics. This perspective helps to bridge the ethics of the individual journalist and the political, economic and other external interests of media corporations. Unlike the individualist conception, organisational ethics conceive of journalism as a craft that goes beyond an individual possessing a series of technical skills for writing good informative text (Plaisance, 2011; Sanders, 2003). Journalists perform a ‘cooperative’ activity according to Breit (2004) aimed at attaining a series of virtues associated with the profession – such as veracity, transparency, honesty and respect for others. Pursuing such virtues orientates journalistic activities and products towards excellence, while benefitting the social community that legitimises the profession. The context of professional and social community that gives meaning to this conception of journalism (Zelizer, 1993) also gives meaning to the nature of the news business and journalistic institutions. These institutions cannot be conceived outside the community or the collective virtues that legitimise professional practice. In turn, news companies seek other external goods such as power and profit. If media corporations are the institutions that make professional journalistic practice possible, as Craft (2004) suggests, then the practice is dependent upon and vulnerable to these institutions. Craft (2004) concludes that this dependency makes media news corporations morally responsible (p. 261): ‘Corporations take on some responsibility for the sustenance of practice, a responsibility that would appear to necessitate reining in desires for certain external goods if their pursuit damages practices’. The organisational ethics approach thus conceives of journalistic institutions as moral agents and, therefore, as subjects with ethical obligations and responsibilities. From this, conception derives the possibility of morally judging the behaviour of news corporations over and above the ethical judgements that can be made of the individual actions of employees.
In line with an organisational perspective, recent studies on journalistic ethics have extended the study of ethical practices from the individual journalist to the organisational ethical culture and, consequently, to other professional groups involved in the news business (Harcup, 2002, 2014; Richards, 2010; Wilkins, 2014). Thus, for example, Wilkins (2014: 33–34) distinguishes three ways in which news organisations as a whole might influence ethical decision-making. First, news organisations form a culture that provides a type of solidarity: this culture enables organisations to relate to the ‘outside’ world (other institutions, other news organisations and audiences) all of which are subsumed under the concept of an institutional role. Second, an organisational climate establishes formal and informal behavioural standards, including standards for individual ethical behaviour. Third, organisations, through their leaders, emphasise certain values that subtly permeate the organisation and its employees.
Richards (2010) takes the principles of organisational ethics to argue that one of the most influential factors in determining the moral quality of a news company is the ethical behaviour of its directors, board members and senior managers. Richards starts with the dual nature of the news product as a commercial good and a public service and affirms that ethical behaviour in journalism is the result of a complex amalgam of factors. Among these factors, market aspects are becoming increasingly important, such as the pressure of competition, the objectives of the business organisation or the values of its managers. In a global context of media expansion through multiple platforms and profound technological change, Richards argues that commercial interests too often prevail over journalistic interests. In response to market demands, media news corporations hire executives with a knowledge of the techniques needed to maximise profits, but with little understanding of the professional standards of journalism. Thus, Richards affirms that efficiency on the business side often leads to collateral damage in professional values. For Richards, the solution can be found in professional codes. Given that the moral burden of these codes generally falls on the shoulders of individual journalists hired by the corporation, the author points out that there is an imperious need for the principles of journalistic ethics (in addition to business criteria) to guide the formulation of training programmes for media executives and managers.
Other studies have applied stakeholder theory to the context of journalism: an approach to responsible management that is a current point of reference in the field of business ethics (see, for example, Hunter and Van Wassenhove, 2010; Richards, 2004; Stern, 2008). Coined by Freeman in 1983, the term ‘stakeholder’ deflects the focus of attention from the shareholders and/or owners (whose interests and profits constitute practically the only source of responsibility demanded of corporate executives by the first liberal theories on corporate responsibility) to include any person or group that is, or may be, affected by the activities of the corporation. This perspective thus identifies the moral obligation of the corporation to these groups, and that the corporation must take these groups into account together with its responsibility to shareholders to make profits. In news organisations, the stakeholder notion locates ethical issues within the context of the company as a subject with responsibilities to shareholders, managers, employees (including journalists), readers, audiences, customers, as well as the larger community.
Achieving a balance among the different interests corresponds largely to the executives of news companies. For Stern (2008), the managerial team should take into account both business interests (market pressures, competition, audience ratings or the need to maximise profits) and the interests of the community that the company is addressing through its journalistic activity. These community interests revolve around the interests of the direct consumers of the journalistic product, and the business interests revolve around the aims of the advertisers. The responsibility of senior managers also includes any actions the company takes that affect the working conditions of employees, the independence of journalists, and respect for professional practices. Thus, Stern proposes the creation of a ‘stakeholder code of ethics’ for news company executives. This code would be a type of ethical guide for decision-making – an ‘ethical decision guide’ to paraphrase Elliot and Ozar (2010) – which rather than being addressed to professional journalists (as usually occurs with journalistic ethic codes) is aimed at senior management in media corporations. This ethical guide would permit the formulation of a series of norms that would enable the ethical evaluation of managerial decisions that affect the various parties listed above. For example, it would be the responsibility of executives to ensure the viability of the company and its financial stability in the long run, as well as to encourage the growth of the company as a whole, over and above the demands of any of the stakeholders. Another priority obligation is acting in accordance with the law and social justice, since acting legally and fairly shows the company’s responsibility towards society as a whole. Managers should also prioritise this norm of justice inside the organisation, so that their decisions favour no particular interests. An ethically responsible management team should also make sure that these standards are observed at all levels.
To sum up, we have brought the sociology of perceptions to the study of how journalists perceive organisational ethics. We have also highlighted the scarce literature available on comparative analyses of how perceptions may differ between journalists, managers, media executives and other groups. We have posed an organisational ethics approach as the frame and focus of our study – an empirical investigation on the institutional dimensions of journalistic ethics that draws on the opinions of journalists, as well as other media practitioners and groups. News organisations are seen as moral actors, that is, entities endowed with a conscience and ethical intentionality; as a result, the behaviour of the collective is liable to moral judgement. This evaluation encompasses the actions of the organisation as a whole.
To provide empirical evidence about the opinions of professionals regarding the existence or otherwise of an ethical reference in news organisations, we formulate the following research questions (RQ):
RQ1. How do those holding various roles within a news organisation assess their own ethical performance and the ethical performance of others?
RQ2. How do the members of the organisation evaluate the ethical behaviour of the wider organisation?
RQ3. What factors do news executives and managers, on one hand, and journalists, on the other, see as creating obstacles to improved ethical behaviour in their organisation?
Methodology
To answer the above questions for the Spanish case, we used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Drawing from a universe of 2060 news professionals in Madrid, 2 we obtained 420 questionnaires from a random sample. Data were statistically treated using the IBM SPSS 20.0 package. The I+D+i project guide for the survey initially included 34 questions in two blocks: the first block covering the ethical health of the media company and the second block covering the effectiveness of the various mechanisms of external regulation and self-regulation for journalists. In this article, we use the responses from the first block regarding the perception of ethics in the organisation.
Additionally, qualitative fieldwork was structured in two simultaneous phases from January to June 2012. We conducted 30 in-depth semi-structured interviews and six focus groups. For interviews, 30 managers were selected according to their job posts and fluency of expression, as well as the historical and economic importance of their news organisations. The group represents a balanced mix of management levels (chairman, managing director, director, general manager, assistant director, deputy communications director and manager responsible for corporate social responsibility (CSR)) and positions of professional responsibility (news editor, editor, chief editor and ombudsman).
A total of 46 participants with extensive professional experience took part in the focus group discussions. These individuals mostly had training in communications (87.0%) and held management responsibilities (chairman, MD, director, deputy director, director of communication, and other positions) in various sectors (press, radio, television, digital, press office and news agency). Participants, some of whom were also interviewed, were grouped for discussion as follows: business administration (17.4%), media executives (15.2%), business directors (15.2%), journalists (21.7%), trade union and professional associations (15.2%), and suppliers/audience groups (15.2%). The 30 interviews and 6 focus groups were transcribed and examined through a discourse analysis that enabled us to detect the most relevant and repetitive categories in relation to the theoretical premises of organisational ethics, the problems the company faces and journalistic barriers to ethical conduct.
Findings
In this section, we analyse the results of our fieldwork. As we move through the information, we include the research questions in the survey that were formulated directly from the concepts involved in the organisational perspective. We present and analyse the results according to the professional category of each participant. We divided all the responses into two groups: journalists (a recoded category that groups journalists, or their equivalent, and makes up 52 per cent of the sample), and management and executive staff (48%).
Journalists blame media executives and managers
Table 1 presents the participant opinions on the ethical behaviour of various groups in the sector: (a) news professionals, (b) news organisation executives, (c) news organisation managers, (d) all Spanish news companies, (e) their company, and (f) the main competitors of their company. On a scale of 1–10 (1 = ‘lacking ethics’ and 10 = ‘excellent ethics’), the respondents gave poor marks to executives and managers of news companies by giving them scores below the 5.5 that represents average. Overall, Spanish news companies also were assessed as below average. Only news professionals obtained scores above 5.5. By distributing the sample according to professional category, we can observe differences in the scores given by executives and managers, on one hand, and journalists, on the other. Executives and managers see themselves as generally unethical, while all the respondents see journalists as more ethical. Executives and managers gave more positive assessments of their respective groups. Executives gave a little more than 6 points to their own news companies, as opposed to a score of 5 given by journalists.
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = ‘lacking ethics’ and 10 = ‘excellent ethics’), how would you rate the ethical behaviour of the following groups?
In general, the reigning discourse of interviews and focus groups criticised the ethics of news companies in favour of the ethics of journalists: ‘I’d give the company a 6 – to me it’s essential to differentiate the journalist from the company he or she works for. I’d give journalists a high 7’, stated the executive of an association of regional radio and television stations in the trade union and professional association focus group. It is interesting to observe that the focus group of media executives evaluated the ethical behaviour of news organisations more negatively than did the journalists. The editor of a digital newspaper assessed news organisations with ‘a score of 3, just so as not to give them a zero because all of the news companies are very closely identified with the economic and political sectors’.
Discourses from the focus group of media executives also provided details of the lack of ethics shown by executives and managers. One television executive remarked: ‘The poor journalists work as honestly as possible and have to do battle with the company executives. Let’s give the news company a 2 and the journalists an 8’. The discussion about ethical conflicts within the journalist focus group highlighted the role played by executives and managers in the ethical behaviour of the company: ‘As soon as the figure of the journalist-manager disappears and gives way to a financial expert … well, we have no support at all, none at all’ (the New York correspondent of a national Spanish newspaper).
In the interviews, the majority of executives defended the ethical behaviour of their companies. Although this was not the only position held, the general attitude is one of justifying the company for which the interviewee works: ‘We work in a company whose maxim is to make as much money as possible’ (transcript from interview with media executive number 30). Senior managers of the communication companies interviewed recognised the ethical deviations made by media companies. However, they stress that such deviations are based on the peculiarities of each medium. In contrast to the results of the surveys, the opinions of respondents reveal an attempt to gain credibility by giving examples of bad practice and, at the same time, ‘saving face’ for the medium itself (Goffman, 1974: 10). These participants also blame economic pressures for the lack of ethics, as well as immediacy or audience impact: ‘We work in a company whose main goal is to earn as much money as possible – and we are often reminded of this point’ (taken from the transcript interview number 30).
The ethics of journalistic organisations given minimal standards
Following Bañón-Gómis et al. (2011: 34), participants were told to look at a four images to assess the ethical climate in an organisation – ‘reprehensible’, ‘responsible’, ‘aware’ and ‘excellent’ – and associate the organisation they work for with one of the images. Respondents were also provided with a brief explanation of the meanings of the four categories. According to Bañón-Gómis et al., ‘reprehensible’ organisations represent an unethical and even illegal operation. ‘Ethically responsible’ organisations imply an ‘arbitrary’ and ‘reactive’ view of ethics that limits the moral horizon of the organisation to respect for some minimum of legal standards, human rights and professional codes. ‘Ethically aware’ companies look beyond their obligations to address ethical values and the common good. Finally, an ‘excellent’ organisation (the maximum degree of ethical performance) embodies the ‘proactive’ and ‘constructive’ ethics of virtuous organisations that ‘habitually do the right thing’, ‘seek continuous improvement’ and ‘contribute to the common good’. As shown in Figure 1, most of the professionals describe the company they work for as ‘ethically responsible’.
How would you describe the company you work for?
Interviewees and focus group participants are cautious in their evaluations about legal compliance. In general, they said that the rules are respected, both in their firm and in the newspaper business as a whole. While there is an official discourse that shows respect for the law, the respondents recognise that some companies and professionals have no difficulties breaking the law if it is profitable to do so: ‘I think the law is respected, but it is true that there are practices, especially in television and digital media, that violate the right to privacy’ (transcript of interview number 12). Thus, the law is seen to be broken – but never in the media for which the participant is working. The analysis of the transcripts reveals that the difficulty is in combining ‘the rules of the profession’ (such as rigour, truthfulness and transparency) with ‘business rules’ (publish first and produce profits).
The discourse on ethical excellence appeals to self-regulation and assumes that ethical responsibility requires continuously making efforts beyond mere compliance with legal standards. However, this excellence is seen as difficult to obtain in the Spanish context where economic and political interests interfere in the journalistic product. The logic of individual ethics also emerges in the answers about ethical excellence: ‘I contribute to the common good, but of course, these principles are up to the individual; companies have no soul’ (transcript of interview number 7 – director of a national magazine)
Market driven/political interests versus journalistic values
Table 2 reflects the perception by interviewees of the problems that affect journalists. Various problems were selected and ordered according to a range of issues that we considered as close to the spheres of the individual journalist, the organisational and corporative structures and the broader legal and journalistic environment.
Principal problems affecting the profession.
Job insecurity emerges as the main concern of those surveyed (97.7%). This problem is followed by concern with the predominance of economic and political interests over journalistic interests. There is greater perception of management and business issues (job insecurity and the predominance of economic and political interests) than of those relating to the profession of journalism (unauthorised professional practice) and the media system (concentration of media ownership). It can be observed that the perception of problems revolves mainly around the governance of the news organisation. Again, the problems of job insecurity and the predominance of economic and political interests are considered more important than matters more directly related to ethical performance by journalists. It is also worth pointing out that ‘unauthorised professional practice’ is the only factor considered as irrelevant by almost half of the respondents – twice as many respondents as the other factors deemed as irrelevant. Journalists were especially likely to see this factor as irrelevant.
The distribution of responses according to the job category of the respondent (journalists or management and executive staff) shows that managers attach less importance to the problems encountered than journalists. The statistical analysis applied in the contingency table and the χ2 test in Table 3 shows a connection between the perception of the problems posed that affect journalism and the job category of the respondent. This correlation is significant in the case of concern about the lack of professional autonomy (considered less important by managers than journalists). Differences were detected in the assessment of job insecurity and concentration of media ownership (given that executives and managers give less importance to these aspects than journalists).
Contingency table and proof of χ2: Problems affecting journalism according to various categories of administrative and managerial staff.
In line with the survey, the majority of professionals who participated in focus groups coincided in associating journalistic ethics with the ethical climate of the news organisation: ‘Ethics is indissolubly linked to the business activity of a company’, said the assistant editor of a daily newspaper. The president of a consumer association maintains that ‘There are fantastic professionals who would do a great job in optimum conditions, but they depend on a business, on a [media] conglomerate’. According to this organisational logic, the participants formulated a good part of the ethical issues in the profession using the economic/political interest binomial described above, in which economic motives are more important than professional values: ‘We are completely subject to the industry and in our world, maintaining a balance is difficult’, says one newspaper editor. The fear that economic clout will override professional values is present in statements and is abundantly clear in the focus group discussions. The editor of a prestigious business daily affirmed that ‘The commercial nature of the media is more influential than its job to inform’.
Most senior managers from media companies say that they prioritise ethics when making management decisions. They explain that the separation between editorial and business management is the main safeguard for this priority. However, they add that this separation is only feasible when business is good: ‘If the business gets into difficulties then obviously the need to find financing, or more advertising, may seriously affect the independence of the editorial line’ (transcript of interview number 22). Respondents tend to separate business management from professional ethics and redirect ethical conflicts towards editing and self-regulation (understood in a very personal level) and the ethics of the individual journalist. Journalists refer to their director when these ethics are put under pressure, and directors are expected to use their professional experience to resolve doubts, errors and day-to-day ethical conflicts that may arise.
Obstacles to ethics: Differences between the perception of journalists and executives
Table 4 shows the perceptions the survey respondents gave about the possible obstacles to a more ethical behaviour by their organisations. The respondents pointed to the need to make profits as the main obstacle, and the lack of executives and managers who are aware of the importance of news ethics as one of the major obstacles. Following these two factors in order of importance are political pressures, corporate pressures, pressures from government, pressures from advertisers and pressures from media competitors. There is an apparent lack of connection between more ethical behaviour on the part of news organisations and pressure from competition among colleagues, the lack of mechanisms to facilitate clear guidelines (style sheets, professional ethical codes, etc.) and pressure from audiences and readership.
Obstacles to more ethical behaviour.
The division of the sample into journalists and management showed that, in general, journalists gave more importance to the various obstacles. In the case of ‘the lack of awareness by executives and managers of the importance of news ethics’, journalists assigned twice as much importance as executives and managers – with 40.3 per cent of journalists considering this as the main obstacle as opposed to 21.4 per cent of executives and managers. The results obtained in a comparison of means tests of this distribution (Table 5) indicate that managers are less worried than journalists about pressure from media executives and competition among colleagues. The mean values obtained according to professional category show that comparatively few executives and managers are aware of the importance of journalistic ethics, and that journalists are more sensitive to pressure from advertisers and media company managers than executives and managers.
Obstacles to ethical journalism as reported by various recodified categories of interviewed administrative and managerial staff (means test).
Opinions from focus groups emphasised that aspects such as company organisation and policy and decision-making, or the way in which senior management confront market pressures, directly affect their professional ethics. ‘Evidently it is very difficult to be independent, and practice ethics based on that independence when one’s professional practice is mediated by the company’, affirmed the president of the Spanish Radio Academy. A staff journalist at a digital newspaper defined journalistic ethics as a set of morally good practices in which there is a convergence of the individual actions of journalists, the news business and journalistic corporations: ‘I share with everyone a goal of personal ethics, which would be the reference for personal and group professional ethics, and the ethics of what you communicate’.
Another journalist upholds,
I believe this is where the problem can be found: we would have to know how to balance both sides [business management and journalism], in other words, not having badly paid employees, offering a minimally decent salary, and at the same time, generating good information.
A reporter working in the international section of a Spanish national daily refers to the complicity among the various actors involved in the business side: ‘I left [X] because interference from the advertising department became unbearable’. In the focus group with suppliers and audience/readership, emphasis was placed on the unease caused by the inconsistency between the public discourse of news companies and how they act internally.
The logic of having organisational ethics was agreed in all the focus groups. Nonetheless, the logic of an individual ethic was also found in the executive and manager group. I don’t believe in business ethics, I believe in individual ethics; in other words, you can have some well-written and tabulated principles, but in the end, if people aren’t ethical, well, I think it’s a personal thing’, said one of the executives in this focus group. This was the most prominent position in the in-depth interviews with media executives and managers. What prevails is the discourse that individual ethics exempt senior executives from moral obligations and places these obligations squarely on the shoulders of journalists:
I always say a reporter has a great deal of power and can publish something that isn’t accurate or isn’t entirely true. So a reporter with a small teletype machine must know that he or she is just as responsible as me the executive. (transcript from interview with a media executive)
Conclusion
Ethical values in journalism have tended to be a narrowly defined focus for consideration in classical media sociology. Recent studies have begun to give importance to the ethical culture of journalists, since it is understood that ethical principles are crucial in order to capture the perceptions of professionals regarding their own behaviour, the nature of the work and the changing state of journalism. This emphasis on moral values requires, in our opinion, an organisational view of ethics that places these values precisely within the collective structure of the news institution, over and above the individual actions of its professionals.
The opinions of the 420 news professionals in Madrid surveyed point to an organisational perception of ethics. There is greater concern for ethical problems related to the business side than for those associated with professional ethics or the media system. The assessments of ethical behaviour by the different groupings and companies within the sector are related to aspects that are indicators of the moral behaviour of the news organisation as a whole (decision-making and business management).
On a scale of 1–10, the managers of Spanish news organisations were given marks below the 5.5 score that represents average. Executives and managers rate their own behaviour as unethical, while all respondents valued journalists as above average. These data summarise the main evidence that answers the RQ1 – how different groups in the news media sector assess and were assessed by respondents. The qualitative study corroborates the survey results and provides contrasting perceptions from journalists and management. Although senior managers recognise the ethical problems in their companies, they justify this behaviour by pointing to audience behaviour and the need to be first.
Given a choice of ethically ‘excellent, aware, responsible or reprehensible’, most professionals coincided in describing their organisation as ‘responsible’. Overall, survey data and the opinions expressed in focus groups and interviews describe Spanish news organisations as only minimally ethical; meaning that the organisations merely complied with the law (in response to RQ2). In the analysis of the answers given by senior executives, two opposing ideas were repeated: namely, that no companies are excellent (the ideal itself being said to be impossible), and that the company they work for is excellent (many respondents claiming that their company was the only excellent company).
Job insecurity is the main problem affecting the profession – with 97.7 per cent of respondents confirming that the issue is quite or very important. This problem is related to the organisational order and corporate structure that also contains the main obstacles to ethical behaviour (RQ3). Among possible obstacles to a more ethical behaviour by their organisations, respondents rated the need to produce profits as both the main obstacle and the lack of executives and managers who are aware of the importance of news ethics as one of the major obstacles. Opinions from focus groups emphasised that professional ethics were directly affected by aspects such as company organisation and policy and decision-making or the way senior management respond to market pressures. An attentive analysis of the most significant statistical differences has enabled us to lay the foundations of a quantitative and qualitative approach differentiated by group. Together with the general agreements, we observed logical and interesting disagreements between journalists and management. There is a greater awareness of ethical problems among journalists and similar categories. Likewise, journalists gave more importance to the obstacles to ethical behaviour.
Data from the 420 questionnaires, as well as the dominant categories that structure discourses from focus groups and interviews, point to journalistic ethics as a normative dimension integrated into the structure of organisations that involve media managers and executives – as well as journalists. The discourses also reveal the crucial ethical dilemmas of institutional ethics as highlighted in the literature: tensions between journalism, business and news organisations and the dual nature of news companies as a public service and a for-profit business.
Concerns for the organisational and political structures of the news company (more than the ethics of journalists) seem to indicate the need for organisational ethics that, as argued before, involve managers and executives and materialise in the company’s decision-making process. However, the organisational logic that structures discourses in the six discussion groups is interwoven with the positing of an individualistic ethic – particularly noteworthy in the interviews with executives and managers. This divergent position does not invalidate the objectives of this research, but it does evidence the need to create mechanisms that will enable greater ethical awareness to be fostered among executives and managers of news companies. Research on such mechanisms within the field of journalism ethics may be a productive direction for further study. The study of new media manager and executive discourses from the 30 interviews presented here is based on an initial overview of the main reiterative terms and their relationship to categories of organisational ethics. A much more substantive examination through discourse analysis should be made to illuminate how interviewees relate such categories and the meanings behind the transcripts.
The study area of Madrid was sufficiently representative as the main Spanish companies and communication groups, as well as the largest number of entrepreneurs, managers and journalists are based in this area. However, data have been gathered from respondents in just one region of the country. Further research could be made to gain greater representativeness for the Spanish case.
Finally, the data were collected in 2012. The gap of 4 years could mean that the information is out of date – especially in the rapidly changing world of national and global journalism. However, significant differences cannot be seen in the last annual report on journalism published by the Press Association of Madrid (2015). The report described the main problems as rising unemployment and job insecurity, poor pay and lack of political or economic independence in the media. The report also said that obstacles to ethical behaviour include a lack of job security, dominance of economic and political interests and contempt for the autonomy of professionals. Therefore, we can see that opinions have changed little with regard to these issues.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under grant CSO2010-15575/COMU.