Full Description
This book provides journalism students with an easy-to-read yet theoretically rich guide to the dialectics, contradictions, problems, and promises encapsulated in the term 'journalism ethics'.
Offering an overview of a series of crises that have shaken global journalism to its foundations in the last decade, including the coronavirus pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the 2020 US presidential election, the book explores the structural and ethical problems that shape the journalism industry today. The authors discuss the three principle existential crises that continue to plague the news industry: a failing business model, technological disruption, and growing public mistrust of journalism. Other topics covered include social media ethics, privacy concerns, chequebook journalism, as well as a new analysis of journalism theory that critiques the well-worn tropes of objectivity, the Fourth Estate, freedom of the press, and the marketplace of ideas to develop a sophisticated materialist reimagining of journalism ethics.
This is a key text for students of journalism, mass communication, and media ethics, as well as for academics, researchers, and communications professionals interested in contemporary journalism ethics.
Contents
Preface: Not the book we started with
Introduction: Ethics, Trust and the Crisis of Journalism
Chapter 1: News in Crisis: Responding to the Pandemic
Chapter 2: News in Crisis: Responding to Black Lives Matter
Chapter 3: News in Crisis: The Fake news crisis
Chapter 4: News in crisis: Digital Disruption
Chapter 5: News in Crisis: The economic collapse of the news industry
Chapter 6: The crisis of legitimacy
Chapter 7: Journalism and social media: An ethical minefield?
Chapter 8: Is it time to abandon privacy?
Chapter 9: Dubious methods
Chapter 10: The importance of whistleblowers and source protection
Chapter 11: Journalism under threat
Chapter 12: Journalism, ethics and philosophy
Chapter 13: A crisis in epistemology and ideology
Chapter 14: (Re)introducing the dialectic: Hegel and Merrill
Chapter 15: 'Standing Merrill on his feet': Journalism and materialism
Chapter 16: Dialectic in action: Revisiting key issues in ethics
Chapter 17: Rebuilding trust in journalism: An ethical imperative
Bibliography
Index
