I remember the first time I began writing for the Albany Student Press. I did a few restaurant reviews, previews to events and I’ve met a lot of people in the process. Let’s face it, people want to be heard and they turn to the newspaper as a way of getting their word out there.
There were times when I was offered free food, offered free tickets and other things while I was doing a review or writing a story about the person or place. To be honest, I was tempted to take what was offered. But I knew in my mind and consciously that as a journalists, it would be wrong.
Today journalists around the world a faced with the similar issues. There are however ethics each journalist need to follow and the ethics exist for a reason.
We must refuse gifts as journalists, why? Because it’s a conflict of interest. Taking something from someone is sort of like a bribe and though you may think you can take free gifts without having it affect your judgement in writing, it is still wrong. Journalists HAVE to act independently. Taking bribes and gifts in my opinion is sort of like corruption. Journalists need to stay clear from this.
Journalist need to seek the truth and report it… taking gifts from others may cause you to distort the truth and when that happens, trust is broken between the writers and readers. When we distort the truth, it makes the newspaper look bad. It gives the newspaper a bad name and people begin not to trust their local newspapers. What is a newspaper without trust? Therefore we need not set up news, not create any biases and just report the truth and be honest. This will build trust within readers and will strengthen the newspaper.
