Task 10Abby Downing

National Union of Journalists (NUJ) The NUJ is the voice for journalists and journalism, it is a inclusive union and represents a

broad range of media professionals. The NUJ protects and promotes media freedom,

professionalism and ethical rights.

They are represented across the media – as staffers, casuals and freelances in broadcasting,

newspapers, magazines, books, public relations, photographers and in new media.

Founded in 1907, the NUJ is one of the biggest journalists' unions in the world.

Since 1936 the NUJ have set some principles and rules which they want to be followed and

promoted to the media industry. These are on the following page.

A journalist:

1. At all times upholds and defends the principle of media freedom, the right of freedom of expression and the right of the public

to be informed.

2. Strives to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair.

3. Does her/his utmost to correct harmful inaccuracies.

4. Differentiates between fact and opinion.

5. Obtains material by honest, straightforward and open means, with the exception of investigations that are both overwhelmingly

in the public interest and which involve evidence that cannot be obtained by straightforward means.

6. Does nothing to intrude into anybody’s private life, grief or distress unless justified by overriding consideration of the public

interest.

7. Protects the identity of sources who supply information in confidence and material gathered in the course of her/his work.

8. Resists threats or any other inducements to influence, distort or suppress information and takes no unfair personal advantage

of information gained in the course of her/his duties before the information is public knowledge.

9. Produces no material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed,

legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation.

10. Does not by way of statement, voice or appearance endorse by advertisement any commercial product or service save for the

promotion of her/his own work or of the medium by which she/he is employed.

11. A journalist shall normally seek the consent of an appropriate adult when interviewing or photographing a child for a story

about her/his welfare.

12. Avoids plagiarism.

Social awareness means you should know what is socially acceptable in society and you should act upon this by knowing what you should and should not write in journalism. Cultural awareness means that you should know and read upon different cultural to gain knowledge about them, this would prevent you from discriminating them in anyway, as different cutlers have different beliefs. You should know that different cultural do read the newspaper and magazines, so being aware of it can help you which means you can appreciate and respect their differences.

It is important that your work is fair and unbiased because the way people are represented in your work form an opinion to the public reading it. Following these guidelines and those of the NUJ will assure you not to oblige to any of the rules.

To become the best trainee of the Union you will need to learn and read upon what aspects you need to be particularly aware of when writing in journalism, these include Disability, Age, Suicide, Terrorism, Race, Asylum and immigration. When given a story that includes any of these you should read into the guideline or even call the NUJ advice line who will help you with anything you are unsure of writing.

By following these guidelines and sticking to them will assure you of not causing any further upset to these categories that have already been through discrimination.

Cultural and Social Awareness

ConnotationsLanguage is a very important factor of media, as when it is written out wrong or in the wrong words

then it can come across negative rather then positive, which causes problems with consumers. This

means that journalists must be extra careful with the way they use words and connotations. Words

can categorize people into groups that they do not belong and can misinterpret them.

A Connotation are words that are associated with their primary words for example connotations of

red are anger, hatred, love and evil.

‘Gypsies and Travellers are regularly presented in a negative light in the mainstream

media, and in particular in the tabloid press, where they are frequently portrayed, for

example, as being by definition associated with....sponging of British society, making

bogus claims for protection and being troublemakers. ECRI is concerned not only at the

racist and xenophobic messages themselves that are thus propagated by the media,

but also by the fact that civil society actors have in some cases observed direct links

between minority groups targeted by the media and minority groups targeted in violent

attacks.’

This piece of text is from the NUJ website, it explains how the work Gypsie and traveller needs to be

only written in a positive aspect or not at all, as when these words are written in media, they are

often associated with bad things, which is putting a bad reputation on these type of people/group.

Alternative Readings When journalists are writing a story they need to bare in mind that all audiences might read

their work, even if they have a certain audience in mind they still need to make the writing

professional for all audiences.

For example victims of crime might have a different view on a story/article. When writing about

burglary or murder especially, this needs to be considered, as someone that has experienced

these kind of things will read upon the story different from someone who hasn’t experienced

this.

Stuart Halls reception theory 1980 will help include everyone's point of view.

Credibility-Objective It is very important for journalists to be trustworthy and reliable. Otherwise this makes people question

the credibility of your work and also the newspaper/magazine you are writing for.

Another important factor of this is that if your work is not reliable and seen as credible than it can damage the value of the story.

For journalism to be credible it should be impartial, unprejudiced and unbiased.

If journalists have an agenda then they will look for evidence that supports this and not evidence that is against or does not support this, they do this from the start to make sure their story/article is credible. This is unfair to audiences as they do not see both sides of a story and can not make their own views because they’re just fed information from one side of the political view. This is the ideal way, which is far from reality. Journalists have a point of view that leans more to the right or left wing of political views.

Editors push stories that match their political views to the front of the paper and push aside ones that do not.

You can clearly see this difference when you compare those papers on the right side and the left side.

For example: The Guardian, The Mirror, The independent, and the observer lean towards the left spectrum, whereas The Telegraph, Daily Mail, The express and the sun lean towards the right

Left wing beliefs are usually progressive in nature,

they look to the future, aim to support those who cannot

support themselves, are idealist and believe in equality.

Right wing beliefs value tradition, they are about

equity, survival of the fittest, and they believe in

economic freedom.

Accuratein order for journalism to be credible it needs to be accurate that means that all evidence needs to

be shown in the newspaper or on request. This means that dates, times and quotes must be

gathered as you need this to support your evidence for your story. You need to report on correct

facts.

When (if) journalists do not follow this and produce inaccurate information it can cause a lot of hurt

and distress to the people you are reporting on, damage their reputation and public profile.

Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is a commission that is their for people to report to if they

have had a story/report written about them that they think makes the look bad or they have been

treated unfairly, the commission look into it and can either retract the information or change it so it is

correct or written in a more accurate sense.

You can still keep your privacy if you do not want your name to be written in a newspaper, by

showing the evidence it is usually written as ‘a source told us’ which is still providing evidence.

Truthful One of the most important aspects of journalism is to be truthful, however, a lot of journalists

abide this rule therefore writing fiction to make their story more interesting or follow their papers

viewpoint, this can lead to series consequences both legal and ethical.

To be seen as credible and make sure your newspaper is reliable for the truth you need to

follow this rule

statistics and figures can be presented wrong to make a something better or worse

Allegations can be made about people who have no basis in reality.

Fair and Balanced Writing should be approached open-minded and be non discriminatory.

The NUJ code of ethics states that nothing should be written to lead to hatred or discrimination,

it should be fair. Again, this is also ignored by some journalists and not followed, journalists

often lean to one side of a story and not do a fair balanced written article for the audience to

decide upon their view.

Reasons why journalists ignore these rules is because they use emotive stories to increase

their sales and also right about subjects that their audiences will be interested in.

Legal - Defamation Defamation: when false statement is untrue and harms the reputation of a group

individual, business, company, government, product, nation or religion.

It can lead to liable cases if the print media defamation goes against being fair,

truthful and accurate.

For exaple the daily mirror labeled frankie boyle as a racist comedian as they took

his jokes wrong. “Boyle used the word “Paki” in a sketch about Afghanistan, but

although some people might laugh at the forbidden word, the joke was about the

different value the British media places on the lives of Britons and Afghans.”

“Boyle won £54,650 in damages after a High Court jury found that the Daily Mirror

had libeled him by calling him a “racist comedian”.

Copyright Journalists must not steal other peoples work this goes

against copyright laws and lead to liable cases.

Copyright covers the work you create so people can’t

steal it without consequences.

Children and Young People The editors code has rules that apply specifically to stories concerning

children which include: code 6

1. Young people should be free to complete their time at school without unnecessary intrusion.

2. A child under 16 must not be interviewed or photographed on issues involving their own or another child’s welfare unless a custodial parent or similarly responsible adult consents.

3. Pupils must not be approached or photographed at school without the permission of the school authorities.

4. Minors must not be paid for material involving children’s welfare, nor parents or guardians for material about their children or wards, unless it is clearly in the child's interest.

5. Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publishing details of a child’s private life.

Confidentiality14) Confidential sources

Journalists have a moral obligation to protect

confidential sources of information.

Journlists may come to a point when they’re talking to people about breaking the law,

this means they could be talking to drug users/dealers, or burglars. These people

who are giving away the story would never want to be found out which means that

there needs to be rules on confidentiality.

Official Secrets The official secrets is used in Hong Kong, India,

Ireland, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom, Canada

and New Zealand, the act is a law that protects national

security and state secrets.

It is very common for journalists and people to have to

sign this act before and after commuting in work that

involves the use of these secrets. Such as going into a

private army base.

Ethical-Codes of Practise When journalists are going about their work they have ethical

responsibilities they need to consider. They have guidelines to follow in

the codes of practice such as the NUJ codes and the editors code of

practise, these are guidelines to help you conduct your work as well as

write it.

These guidelines are especially helpful for if something goes wrong. A lot

of journalists still break these codes to get a better story that the public

would be more interested in, rather then one that doesn’t share a lot of

information, of which people are allowed to complain about if they think

they have done so. Their is an organisation that are for complaints called

Independent press standards organisation (IPSO).

The Public Interest There may be exceptions to the clauses marked * where they can be demonstrated to be in the public

interest.

1. The public interest includes, but is not confined to:

i) Detecting or exposing crime or serious impropriety.

ii) Protecting public health and safety.

iii) Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation.

2. There is a public interest in freedom of expression itself.

3. Whenever the public interest is invoked, the PCC will require editors to demonstrate fully that they

reasonably believed that publication, or journalistic activity undertaken with a view to publication,

would be in the public interest and how, and with whom, that was established at the time.

4. The PCC will consider the extent to which material is already in the public domain, or will become

so.

5. In cases involving children under 16, editors must demonstrate an exceptional public interest to

over-ride the normally paramount interest of the child

Privacy *Privacy

i) Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence,

including digital communications.

ii) Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual's private life without consent. Account will be

taken of the complainant's own public disclosures of information.

iii) It is unacceptable to photograph individuals in private places without their consent.

Note - Private places are public or private property where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Although this is a code of practise people still break these rules for the publics interest and go to weddings,

funerals and other celebrations that are their private life and take photographs. You are only allowed to

photograph people with their content and it often done to much. The public have a right for their private and

personal life to be kept to themselves.

This privacy code of practice rules out everything about privacy from not being able to go into private property

to not being able to take photographs from hidden cameras or recordings.

Intrusion Intrusion into grief or shock

i) In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with

sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively. This should not restrict the right to

report legal proceedings, such as inquests.

*ii) When reporting suicide, care should be taken to avoid excessive detail about the method

used.

This rule again is often broke because journalists state that it is in the interest of the public, although

their is a fine line between the interest of the public and the publics interest.

Harassment *Harassment

i) Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit.

ii) They must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals

once asked to desist; nor remain on their property when asked to leave and must not follow

them. If requested, they must identify themselves and whom they represent.

iii) Editors must ensure these principles are observed by those working for them and take care

not to use non-compliant material from other sources.

As well as privacy this line is often crossed to support the public interest. Journalists are often

harassing the public to get information from them without stating who they are and who they are

working for which should be given out before taking on an interview.