Principles of Journalism

In 1997, an organization then administered by PEJ, the Committee of Concerned Journalists, began a national conversation among citizens and news people to identify and clarify the principles that underlie journalism. After four years of research, including 20 public forums around the country, a reading of journalism history, a national survey of journalists, and more, the group released a Statement of Shared Purpose that identified nine principles. These became the basis for The Elements of Journalism, the book by PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel and CCJ Chairman and PEJ Senior Counselor Bill Kovach. Here are those principles, as outlined in the original Statement of Shared Purpose.


A STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

After extended examination by journalists themselves of the character of journalism at the end of the twentieth century, we offer this common understanding of what defines our work. The central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society.

This encompasses myriad roles--helping define community, creating common language and common knowledge, identifying a community's goals, heros and villains, and pushing people beyond complacency. This purpose also involves other requirements, such as being entertaining, serving as watchdog and offering voice to the voiceless.

Over time journalists have developed nine core principles to meet the task. They comprise what might be described as the theory of journalism:

1. JOURNALISM'S FIRST OBLIGATION IS TO THE TRUTH

Democracy depends on citizens having reliable, accurate facts put in a meaningful context. Journalism does not pursue truth in an absolute or philosophical sense, but it can--and must--pursue it in a practical sense. This "journalistic truth" is a process that begins with the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts. Then journalists try to convey a fair and reliable account of their meaning, valid for now, subject to further investigation. Journalists should be as transparent as possible about sources and methods so audiences can make their own assessment of the information. Even in a world of expanding voices, accuracy is the foundation upon which everything else is built--context, interpretation, comment, criticism, analysis and debate. The truth, over time, emerges from this forum. As citizens encounter an ever greater flow of data, they have more need--not less--for identifiable sources dedicated to verifying that information and putting it in context.


2. ITS FIRST LOYALTY IS TO CITIZENS

While news organizations answer to many constituencies, including advertisers and shareholders, the journalists in those organizations must maintain allegiance to citizens and the larger public interest above any other if they are to provide the news without fear or favor. This commitment to citizens first is the basis of a news organization's credibility, the implied covenant that tells the audience the coverage is not slanted for friends or advertisers. Commitment to citizens also means journalism should present a representative picture of all constituent groups in society. Ignoring certain citizens has the effect of disenfranchising them. The theory underlying the modern news industry has been the belief that credibility builds a broad and loyal audience, and that economic success follows in turn. In that regard, the business people in a news organization also must nurture--not exploit--their allegiance to the audience ahead of other considerations.


3. ITS ESSENCE IS A DISCIPLINE OF VERIFICATION

Journalists rely on a professional discipline for verifying information. When the concept of objectivity originally evolved, it did not imply that journalists are free of bias. It called, rather, for a consistent method of testing information--a transparent approach to evidence--precisely so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work. The method is objective, not the journalist. Seeking out multiple witnesses, disclosing as much as possible about sources, or asking various sides for comment, all signal such standards. This discipline of verification is what separates journalism from other modes of communication, such as propaganda, fiction or entertainment. But the need for professional method is not always fully recognized or refined. While journalism has developed various techniques for determining facts, for instance, it has done less to develop a system for testing the reliability of journalistic interpretation.


4. ITS PRACTITIONERS MUST MAINTAIN AN INDEPENDENCE FROM THOSE THEY COVER

Independence is an underlying requirement of journalism, a cornerstone of its reliability. Independence of spirit and mind, rather than neutrality, is the principle journalists must keep in focus. While editorialists and commentators are not neutral, the source of their credibility is still their accuracy, intellectual fairness and ability to inform--not their devotion to a certain group or outcome. In our independence, however, we must avoid any tendency to stray into arrogance, elitism, isolation or nihilism.


5. IT MUST SERVE AS AN INDEPENDENT MONITOR OF POWER

Journalism has an unusual capacity to serve as watchdog over those whose power and position most affect citizens. The Founders recognized this to be a rampart against despotism when they ensured an independent press; courts have affirmed it; citizens rely on it. As journalists, we have an obligation to protect this watchdog freedom by not demeaning it in frivolous use or exploiting it for commercial gain.


6. IT MUST PROVIDE A FORUM FOR PUBLIC CRITICISM AND COMPROMISE

The news media are the common carriers of public discussion, and this responsibility forms a basis for our special privileges. This discussion serves society best when it is informed by facts rather than prejudice and supposition. It also should strive to fairly represent the varied viewpoints and interests in society, and to place them in context rather than highlight only the conflicting fringes of debate. Accuracy and truthfulness require that as framers of the public discussion we not neglect the points of common ground where problem solving occurs.


7. IT MUST STRIVE TO MAKE THE SIGNIFICANT INTERESTING AND RELEVANT


Journalism is storytelling with a purpose. It should do more than gather an audience or catalogue the important. For its own survival, it must balance what readers know they want with what they cannot anticipate but need. In short, it must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant. The effectiveness of a piece of journalism is measured both by how much a work engages its audience and enlightens it. This means journalists must continually ask what information has most value to citizens and in what form. While journalism should reach beyond such topics as government and public safety, a journalism overwhelmed by trivia and false significance ultimately engenders a trivial society.


8. IT MUST KEEP THE NEWS COMPREHENSIVE AND PROPORTIONAL

Keeping news in proportion and not leaving important things out are also cornerstones of truthfulness. Journalism is a form of cartography: it creates a map for citizens to navigate society. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map. The map also should include news of all our communities, not just those with attractive demographics. This is best achieved by newsrooms with a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. The map is only an analogy; proportion and comprehensiveness are subjective, yet their elusiveness does not lessen their significance.


9. ITS PRACTITIONERS MUST BE ALLOWED TO EXERCISE THEIR PERSONAL CONSCIENCE

Every journalist must have a personal sense of ethics and responsibility--a moral compass. Each of us must be willing, if fairness and accuracy require, to voice differences with our colleagues, whether in the newsroom or the executive suite. News organizations do well to nurture this independence by encouraging individuals to speak their minds. This stimulates the intellectual diversity necessary to understand and accurately cover an increasingly diverse society. It is this diversity of minds and voices, not just numbers, that matters.

Guerilla Journalism and the Arab Springtime.

Top ten quotes about journalism

According to CBS News: (ironic?)

Number 10:

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
--Oscar Wilde

Number 9:

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
--Thomas Jefferson

Number 8:

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.
--Walter Lippmann

Number 7:

The liberty of the press is a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants.
--Samuel Johnson

Number 6:

A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad.
--Albert Camus

Number Five:

Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.
--Henry Anatole Grunwald

Number Four: (Aka: Whenever you can think up a reason to bring up Grace Kelly, do it.)
The freedom of the press works in such a way that there is not much freedom from it.
--Grace Kelly

Number Three:

News is something someone wants suppressed. Everything else is just advertising.
--Lord Northcliff

Number Two:

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
--Thomas Jefferson

Number One: (You'll thank us for this at the picnic.)

A news story should be like a mini skirt on a pretty woman. Long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting.
--Anonymous, linked to a Texas newspaper editor

A new vision for journalism

What advice would you give to someone graduating from a journalism program today?

Stay positive and try to stay nimble. If you can keep your expenses down, there is almost no end to where you can go or what you can do. For the first time in its history, the Society of Environmental Journalists is made up of a majority of freelancers, as opposed to staffers, and I think this trend is accelerating. Most likely, you will have to freelance at least part of the time. There are still a fair number of entry-level jobs at community newspapers to cover crime or school board meetings, but more and more of these are part-time, without benefits. They're still a good way to cut your teeth doing real shoe-leather reporting. There is still no substitute for daily assignments to teach you the craft, although increasingly journalists have to do it all: come up with the idea, report, edit, write the headline, optimize for search, post online, support through social media, and maybe submit to prize committees. Oh yeah, your editor also wants a photo/audio slideshow and original video, edited and set to royalty-free music. It's due in an hour.

 

When I started journalism school in 2006, my professors didn't have us write headlines on anything we turned in. I asked why not, and the answer was "the copy desk will write them for you." Well, I've never worked anywhere that had a copy desk, in 10 years of the profession, and I've always had to at least suggest my own headlines, and usually write them for others. Gone are the days of rigid specialization via task, although it is still often a good idea to specialize via subject area. However, don't assume you will be stuck in a beat forever; most journos cover several beats in their career, but it does make it easier to get assignments.

---Brian Howard

Brian Clark Howard is a professional blogger, award-winning journalist, social media consultant, and photographer living in New York City. He was most recently the web editor of The Daily Green, a top environmental website that gets more than 1 million unique visitors a month. Brian is a true multimedia professional who has not only written for websites viewed by millions but has also co-written four books and published magazine articles in Men's Health, Connecticut Magazine and the National Geographic's The Green Guide. He's also frequent guest on radio and TV shows.