- Truthfulness: is the ability to tell the truth, to be honest and open.
- Fairness: is the ability to present the story from an objective stand point; giving either party a chance to openly state their opinions on the topic at hand.
- Privacy: involves not invaded, intruding, trespassing the subject at hands personal space such as their home.
- Responsibility: is being able to own and accept any mistakes to come for news pieces that you play a part in.
Each of the characteristics listed above will make a good journalist. Its a professional journalist job to present the audience with fair and accurate reporting, that stems away from bias.
There has been many incidents in which the four rules of ethics have been breached and turned into controversial cases in the public eye.
One for instance was Janet Cooke who fabricated stories of an eight year old drug addict named Jimmy. Her stories were featured on the front page of the Washington Post and she later received the Pulitzer Prize for this piece. Cooke's scandal opened up a door of mistrust between reporters and its viewers in which their credibility is questioned.
In other cases, journalist go to jail for trying to do what they feel as though is the right thing by protecting a source. In most cases this results in jail time. In August of 2006, Joshua Wolf refused to turn over a video tape of a protest in San Francisco in which protesters set a police car on fire. FBI agents and other officials inquired the tape to pin an open investigation on individuals who were responsible for setting the squad car on fire and inadvertently injuring a fellow police officer. Wolf spent 226 days in prison before releasing the tape in its entirety to prosecutors.
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