Professional ethics of a journalist

Paradoxes of development, searches, prospects. International principles proclaimed the right of people to receive truthful information, adherence to objective reality, respect for universal values ​​and diversity of cultures, private life of citizens. They assumed the right of a journalist to refrain from work contrary to his convictions, refusal to disclose sources of information, as well as the right to participate in decision-making in those media outlets where he works. But within the country, compliance with these elementary rules has always been made dependent on political expediency. The professional ethics of a journalist, as an independent branch of scientific knowledge, in Soviet times was not The reasons for this fact were first explained in 1991 in the author's monograph "The Professional Ethics of a Journalist. Paradoxes of development, searches and prospects. ":" In the conditions of complete absorption of the press by the administrative-command party and state system, the professional ethics of a journalist was difficult to understand; institutional: non-negotiable instructions of the publisher, party discipline, fear of imminent sanctions for the slightest deviation from the requirements from above. Thus, the illusion of complete correspondence between the individual consciousness of members of the journalistic corps and what appeared from their pen was created, who did not ask, "the question: does the writer voluntarily or formally adhere to the principles that he carries out in his materials? Considering professional morality as a concretization of general moral principles in relation to the specific conditions of a particular type of activity, the author shows that" the enrichment of general moral requirements for professional meaning occurs insofar as in the process of work the specialist is faced with production problems that he cannot solve without making a moral choice. Such a choice, naturally, presupposes possession of the specifics of this type of labor. And therefore the moral problems of professional activity where they arose. were solved at first practically in the process of this activity, and were themselves considered as one of its aspects.

In comprehending these problems, the science of professional morality was formed. In the bosom of medicine, medical ethics and deontology developed, and doctors were engaged in them. In the field of pedagogy - pedagogical ethics. Judicial ethics were created by lawyers. Each particular ethics took shape as the profession itself developed and the experience of resolving specific professional difficulties accumulated in its depths. Therefore, any professional ethics can develop only at the junction of three areas: general ethics, the theory of a given type of activity and its specific experience. "

The author categorically opposes the abstract-mechanical understanding of the applied nature of professional ethics, when its only task is considered to be the study of specific conditions for the implementation of general moral requirements, depending on the originality of the profession. He asks the question: `` Can professionalism and ethics, united with each other, become a source of fundamentally new knowledge? Or is the whole point of their symbiosis only in the translation of common patterns into professional tracing paper? Does not knowledge arise here that is not reducible to general ethics? "

The author gives positive answers to these questions and therefore sees the second important function of professional ethics in the study of norms born of the specifics, in particular, of journalistic work and having no analogue in the general moral system.

In the activities of the journal, such norms, neolly, clearly contradict general moral principles as in medical or advocacy ethics (for example, "medical confidentiality" or the duty of a lawyer to defraud even contrary to the conviction is important in the interh of the client). In chni. The professional morality of the magazine, under certain conditions, allows the publication of material, the author of which does not speak with personal future foolishness, which, of course, contradicts the principles of truthfulness and objectivity. It also justifies the editor's intervention in someone else's headlessness by the author, when such heading is difficult.

Work in the press makes adjustments to the very hierarchy of moral values ​​of the individual. In particular, the analysis of complaints against journalists revealed that among the moral qualities that are obligatory for representatives of this profession, readers put truth and impartiality first. The same result was given by a selective survey of the journalists themselves. But the opinion of the journalists coincided with the readers' opinion only in relation to this main characteristic. As for other moral qualities necessary for a print worker, the hierarchy of preferences was built differently among journalists than among readers.