Wednesday, February 02, 2005

U.S. Journalists Fare Well On Test Of Ethics, Study Finds

Peter Johnson
USA TODAY

Recent opinion polls show declining respect for the news media and a growing belief among many Americans that reporters have little regard for ethics.

High-profile journalism scandals involving ethical lapses at CBS News, The New York Times, USA TODAY and other media outlets have fed the public's distrust of reporters.

Just this week, a survey of 112,000 high school students found that 36% say newspapers should get government approval before publishing stories and that 32% say the media enjoy too much freedom.

But in a new study, journalism turns out to be one of the most morally developed professions in the country, ranking behind only seminarians, physicians and medical students.

Two researchers from the Missouri School of Journalism and Louisiana State University administered the Defining Issues Test - a standardized test designed to measure reactions to ethical dilemmas - to 249 reporters from print and broadcast newsrooms across the USA.

Who's ethical? Profession Score (out of 100)

Seminarians and philosophers 65.1
Medical students 50.2
Practicing physicians 49.2
Journalists {+1} 48.7
Dental students 47.6
Nurses 46.3
Undergraduate students 43.2
Accounting students 42.8
Veterinary students 42.2
Orthopedic surgeons 41.0
Adults overall 40.0

Source: University of Missouri School of Journalism; 1 -based on testing of 249 journalists

The test, Missouri professor Lee Wilkins says, has been given to at least 30,000 professionals over the past 30 years, though never on a large scale to journalists.

Wilkins says journalists scored fourth-highest among the groups of professionals and students who were tested.

They ranked above dental students, nurses, graduate students, undergraduate college students, veterinary students and the adult population in general.

(By comparison, a smaller group Wilkins and Louisiana State's Renita Coleman examined for moral development - 65 advertising professionals - fared much worse ethically than journalists did.)

No significant differences were found among various groups of journalists, including men and women, broadcast and print reporters and managers and non-managers.

But journalists who did civic journalism or investigative reporting scored significantly higher than those who did not.

"Giving journalists the opportunity to work through more ethical dilemmas, whether they are real, occurring on the job or hypothetical in seminars and workshops, bodes well for the profession," Wilkins says.

"Thinking like a journalist involves moral reflection, done at a level that in most instances equals or exceeds members of other learned professions."

Tom Rosenstiel of Columbia University's Project for Excellence in Journalism says the findings echo what the Pew Research Center found in a survey of journalists in 1999. "Most of them got into the business out of a sense that journalism helps democracy work and that they are helping their fellow citizens," he says.

"Journalists get in this business out of an overriding sense of wanting to serve the public interest. They work bad hours, are grossly underpaid, they are derided by other media in Hollywood and increasingly distrusted by the public.

"So if you're not motivated by a sense of public mission, there's not a lot of reason to do it

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