Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Newsgathering And Privacy: Expanding Ethics Codes To Reflect Change In The Digital Media Age, Ginny Whitehouse

Ginny Whitehouse

Media ethics codes concerning privacy must be updated considering the ease with which information now can be gathered from social networks and disseminated widely. Existing codes allow for deception and privacy invasion in cases of over-riding public need when no alternate means are available but do not adequately define what constitutes need or alternate means, or weigh in the harm such acts

do to the public trust and the profession. Building on the eth ics theories of Sissela Bok and Helen Nissenbaum, balancing tests can be developed under a mixed-rule deontology that confines online misrepresentation and

exposing the private information …