International Reporting Student Handbook
Part Two: Ethics Guidelines
1.0 Introduction
This document provides ethical principles and guidelines for Masters of Journalism students enrolled in the International Reporting course at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of British Columbia (UBC).
We ask students to reflect carefully on their own emerging professional ethics as they engage with this International Reporting course. The opportunity for students to pursue one international story in depth over two semesters, and to travel to a developing country to conduct field research, is unique in Canada. As journalists, often working in partnership with large media organizations, you will be expected to conduct yourselves ethically according to the codes of the profession, becoming standard-bearers for the profession itself. As UBC students, you will be expected to conduct yourselves responsibly, safely, with cultural sensitivity, and to uphold the global reputation of the school. As human beings, you will need to openly question your own ethical assumptions in a cross-cultural context. You will also have to be the final judge of what you think is right.
2.0 Ethics Principles
The UBC Graduate School of Journalism is home to many international students, from diverse cultural and political backgrounds, intent on pursuing a professional journalism career in many different Northern and Southern nations. We employ the US-based but internationally-oriented Society of Professional Journalists’ (SPJ) Code of Ethics to guide student professional activities. Students are expected to become deeply familiar with this code, as they encounter and think through ethical challenges in both their theoretical and practical work.
The SPJ code of ethics revolves around four key principles: Seek Truth and Report it; Minimize Harm; Act Independently; Be Accountable. The code is included in full below.
SPJ Code of Ethics
Preamble
Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society's principles and standards of practice.
Seek Truth and Report It
Journalists should be honest, fair, and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information. Journalists should:
• Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
• Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.
• Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability.
• Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.
• Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites, and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.
• Never distort the content of news photos or video. Image enhancement for technical clarity is always permissible. Label montages and photo illustrations.
• Avoid misleading re-enactments or staged news events. If re-enactment is necessary to tell a story, label it.
• Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public. Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story
• Never plagiarize.
• Tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly, even when it is unpopular to do so.
• Examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.
• Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, or social status.
• Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.
• Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.
• Recognize a special obligation to ensure that the public's business is conducted in the open and that government records are open to inspection.
Minimize Harm
Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects, and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect. Journalists should:
• Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
• Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief. • Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the
news is not a license for arrogance.
• Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy.
• Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
• Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects or victims of sex crimes.
• Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges. • Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed.
Act Independently
Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know. Journalists should:
• Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
• Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility. • Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel, and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political
involvement, public office, and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
• Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
• Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
• Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
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.
3.0 Practical guidelines
The following guidelines are intended to assist students and faculty in implementing the SPJ principles during international reporting assignments. Students should familiarize themselves with these at the beginning of the course. These guidelines have been drawn up through consultation with students about the ethical challenges they have encountered.
Transparency
a) Self-‐presentation
• Reporting teams should present themselves clearly as student journalists and faculty from the University of British Columbia who are working on professional media products. • If working in a partnership with a media organization, disclose the name of this organization
and the likely format of the resulting story at all times.
• Ensure all sources understand their remarks and images may be published or broadcast to a large international audience.
b) Documentation
• Keep clearly organized notes, including names and contact details of sources, interview questions and responses.
c) Working with fixers
• Fixers are paid professionals (usually journalists in the host country) who assist with the logistical challenges of reporting a story in a foreign country, on a short time-scale. They may provide valuable background information, organize access to sources, and coordinate
transport, translations, visas, and other logistics.
• Reporting teams should draw up a written agreement or contract with their fixers in advance of their reporting trip. This should include the fixer’s responsibilities, the team’s
expectations, and agreed amount and method of payment for services and expenses. • Fixers are paid at the market rate for the location, and all payments must be documented
with receipts.
• Industry and advocacy groups should not be paid as fixers.
• Maintain a relationship of professional distance with fixers. Avoid staying in their houses, sharing hotel rooms, or giving or receiving gifts.
• If a fixer is a journalist in the host country and contributes to the development of a story, he or she should be credited in the final piece.
d) Working with sources
• Sources are those who feature in a story or who provide information valuable to a story. They may include individuals or representatives from governments, non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, universities, or industry.
• Provide sources with a clear explanation of the purpose of the international reporting project, and a verbal synopsis of the intended story.
• Translate all such explanations, and all release forms, into the local language (and appropriate dialects).
• Obtain signed release forms before conducting interviews, whenever possible.
• Do not submit pre-written interview questions to sources in advance. You may however submit topic areas, and likely discussion points.
• Reporting teams should strive to make it clear to sources that their information, interviews, or quotes may be broadcast to large audiences, or may not feature at all in the resulting story. • In some circumstances, we may agree to a source’s conditions limiting the use of
information they give us. In these instances, we should make these conditions transparent in the reporting (e.g. transparency buttons can be used in multimedia, to avoid interference with the storytelling).
• Maintain a relationship of professional distance with sources. As far as possible, avoid staying in their houses, sharing hotel rooms, or giving or receiving gifts.
• Never accept payment from sources for reporting their side of the story.
• Be respectful of the time and energy people invest to help, and let everyone who has assisted in the development of a story know when the final product is due to be broadcast. Alert
sources to any key changes – especially those that may be unwelcome, such as an interview being cut, or a shift in story focus – and stress how valuable their input was regardless. • Make extra effort to ensure that vulnerable (e.g. sick, elderly, young, poor, or illiterate)
people fully understand the implications of their participation in a story. E.g. release forms should be translated verbally to illiterate individuals.
• Avoid reinforcing the stereotypes that can surround poor, sick, elderly, disabled, or indigenous people by insensitive interviewing or framing of their participation in a story. • Consider the impacts that international broadcast of a vulnerable person’s story might have
on their health, safety, prosperity, and that of their family. e) Working with translators
• Work with professional translators to ensure that release forms, verbal explanations, and interview questions and answers are accurately recorded and understood by all parties. • If fixers are used as translators, ensure that they have the required language skills.
• Try to avoid using sources, or those with any stake in the story, as translators. In exceptional circumstances where this is necessary, reporting teams should be extra vigilant about
checking the accuracy of the translation. Where possible, draw up a written contract or agreement with translators in advance of a reporting trip.
• All translations must be checked for accuracy by a second translator, on return from the field.
Participation in a story
f) Participation in a story
• If a student is asked to participate in a story, faculty consultation is required. Professionalism and cultural sensitivity
g) Dress, language, and gender interactions
• Reporting teams should research the cultural, linguistic, and religious norms (and tensions) of every place they travel to, and make every effort to act with sensitivity and respect. • This includes understanding and using the correct language and gestures of polite greeting,
respecting religious observances, and showing sensitivity to gender norms.
• Dress professionally but appropriately in the field. Business attire may be appropriate when interviewing officials in a major city; long comfortable clothing to prevent mosquito bites and sunstroke may be appropriate when filming in remote rural areas.
• Pay particular attention to culturally appropriate dress and interaction. Revealing shoulders, heads, and ankles, and shaking hands with men, for instance, can cause severe offense in some cultures.
• In some cultures, refusing small gestures of hospitality (such as drinks, or meals) may be insulting. Reporting teams should balance the risk of offense against the risk of
compromising their journalistic independence.
• Inappropriate gifts and other benefits should be returned with a polite explanation that these compromise your neutrality and independence.
i) Payment and tipping for services
• Pay the market rate for accommodation, equipment rental, transport, and other services. • Avoid staying in private homes.
• Follow local norms with regard to tipping waiters, drivers, fixers, and others.
• Document all payments and tips (no matter how small). Where possible, keep receipts and stored them safely.
Editorial process
j) Ethical concerns or disagreements
• In the case of ethical concerns or disagreement, students can approach the faculty ethics committee or guidance.
Dealing with complaints k) Corrections
• Errors should be corrected quickly, appropriately, and explicitly as soon as they become evident. Corrections should say what was wrong as well as putting it right.
• Corrections at the Journalism School are published at the top of a story, to indicate that it was corrected, with a link to the bottom of the story outlining what was corrected and why. • The Director of the School reviews all corrections at the Journalism School.
• All complaints are also passed to the Faculty Ethics Review Committee.
