What is Journalism for? Professional Ethics Between Philosophy and Practice

Abstract

Literature on media ethics often tries to close the gap between theory and professional practice. So do three new books by T. Harcup, K. Sanders, and S. L. Bracci and C. G. Christians, of which only Sanders stably positions herself on both sides. She offers outlines of moral philosophical positions where she favors the virtue ethics approach that deals with a person's character and moral abilities. At the same time Sanders analyzes typical conflicts that arise in the everyday work of journalists. Sanders and the more practical oriented former journalist Harcup follow the same fundamental question: "What is journalism for?", but they give different answers. To Harcup, the basic task of journalism lies in the effort to create publicness, i. e., to override barriers of social communication. To Sanders, journalism exists just to tell the truth. Much can be learned from the ‘theorists for contemporary ethics’, such as Charles Taylor and Jurgen Habermas, who are presented and interpreted in Bracci and Christian's collection, about the relationship between truth and publicness and how this relationship might stimulate the practice of journalism. Journalists' consideration of truth cannot be the necessary prerequisite for the publication of information; instead, the freedom of discourse is the necessary precondition to ensure that the decision whether and to what extent an information is of public interest remains in the hands of the public itself.