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Journalistic ethics

Journalism ethics or journalistic ethics refers to a set of rules or morals adopted by news organizations or members of the news media.

Aside from prohibiting fabrication or plagiarism of news stories or other obvious examples of journalistic fraud, generally accepted ethical rules include:

• Not injecting one's own opinion into a news story, in other words striving to maintain a neutral point of view, unless the story is clearly labeled as "news analysis" or "commentary";

• Attributing all alleged facts, not witnessed directly by the reporter, to someone else ("Police say...."). See also: Attribution (journalism)

• Writing in a fashion that avoids possible defamation liability by clearly labeling allegations as such ("The defendant allegedly committed the crime");

• Avoiding the use of misdirection, for example, in television news, by "staging" events that occur within view of the camera, or in news photography, by "doctoring" or altering photographic images;

• Allowing persons who are the subject of adverse news stories a reasonable opportunity to respond to the adverse information before the story is published or broadcast.