| Methodology
I'd go to the main web site for an outlet, and click around to see if I could find such policies. Usually I'd start at the bottom of the page, clicking the "about us" link and usually if such a policy existed, it would be found there. If there were links to a parent corporation, I'd follow them and see if the parent corp had such a policy. I'd try the "site map" links too, and for a few I did try searches but this got tiresome and I stopped (not that I found any site's policies this way).
I evaluated such policies as I did find as one of four results: Yes they have such a policy, like the NY Times link Glenn provided; No I can find nothing resembling a policy on ethics, journalism or being nice to puppies, Partial - if they have any sense of a statement on their journalism, even just a paragraph, and Corporate if all I could find was some kind of corporate governance policy that was unrelated to journalism (but often said things about not taking bribes or having conflicts of interest and whatnot).
I roughly categorize the outlets by type (somewhat subjective in a few cases) and also by ownership type, being one of: Public for publicly owned outlets, non-profit, Independent Corp for "smaller" corporations that own only one or maybe a couple media outlets, mainly to distinguish them from Major Corporations which are the big chains, and the mega corps like the Sheinhart Wig Corporation/GE which owns NBC. Again, somewhat subjective (is McClatchy an "independent" or "major" corp?) but there are clear extremes which suggest the distinction is not meaningless (whatever McClatchy is, it's clearly a different beast from Disney or Viacom).
There are two special categories, "Rev Moon" and "Rupert Murdoch" which I think deserve distinction even from the mega corps for the purposeful malignancy of their ownership. Moonie corps lose money to forward Moon's personal agenda, whereas TimeWarner and Disney would sell off their media assets if they were losing money consistently.
The Good News: Publicly Owned and Non-Profit Outlets
| Outlet |
Nationality |
Type |
Ownership |
Policy? |
Easy to Find? |
Link |
| CPAC |
Canada |
Public affairs |
non-profit |
Yes |
2 clicks |
link |
| C-Span |
US |
Public affairs |
non-profit |
Yes |
2 clicks |
link |
| AP |
US |
Wire |
non-profit |
Yes |
1 click |
link |
| Australian Broadcasting Corp |
Australia |
TV/Cable News |
Public |
Yes |
2 clicks |
link |
| Special Broadcasting Service |
Australia |
Radio Network |
Public |
Yes |
3 clicks |
link |
| CBC |
Canada |
TV/Cable News |
Public |
Yes |
2 clicks |
link |
| France Télévisions |
France |
TV/Cable News |
Public |
Yes |
3 clicks |
link |
| Radio New Zealand |
New Zealand |
Radio Network |
Public |
Yes |
2 clicks |
link |
| BBC |
UK |
TV/Cable News |
Public |
Yes |
3 clicks |
link |
| PBS |
US |
TV/Cable News |
Public |
Yes |
2 clicks |
link |
| NPR |
US |
Radio Network |
Public |
Yes |
2 clicks |
link |
Yes, quel surprise that outlets that are not primarily driven by profit bat 1.000 for actually having editorial and journalism policies. The only one I'm a little unsure of is the French one, because my French is not that good, but I believe there are links to substantive journalism policies found at that link. I tried a few other public media from other nations, but being linguistically limited to english, and weak-french, if the site didn't have an english translation I was SOL.
These are the best and generally most comprehensive policies I found.
And the Rest...
| Outlet |
Nationality |
Type |
Ownership |
Policy? |
Easy to Find? |
Link |
| Toronto Star |
Canada |
Regional Daily |
Independent corp |
Partial |
2 clicks |
link |
| Le Devoir |
Canada |
Regional Daily |
Independent corp |
Partial |
2 clicks |
link |
| Le Monde |
France |
National Daily |
Independent corp |
No |
|
|
| Jerusalem Post |
Israel |
National Daily |
Independent corp |
No |
|
|
| The Japan Times |
Japan |
Regional Daily |
Independent corp |
Partial |
3 clicks |
link |
| Al Jazeera |
Qatar |
TV/Cable News |
Independent corp |
Yes |
2 clicks |
link |
| The Economist |
UK |
Weekly |
Independent corp |
Partial |
3 clicks |
link |
| The Independent |
UK |
National Daily |
Independent corp |
Yes |
4 clicks |
link |
| Reuters |
UK |
Wire |
Independent corp |
Partial |
2 clicks |
link |
| Salon.com |
US |
Online Magazine |
Independent corp |
Corporate |
2 clicks |
link |
| McClatchy |
US |
Newspaper chain |
Independent corp |
Corporate |
2 clicks |
link |
| The Nation |
US |
Weekly |
Independent corp |
Partial |
1 click |
link |
| TalkingPointsMemo |
US |
Online News |
Independent corp |
No |
|
|
| FireDogLake |
US |
Blog |
Independent corp |
No |
|
|
| The Drudge Report |
US |
Online News |
Independent corp |
No |
|
|
| NY Times |
US |
National Daily |
Independent corp |
Yes |
2 clicks |
link |
| International Herald Tribune |
US |
International Daily |
Independent corp |
Yes |
3 clicks |
link |
| Boston Globe |
US |
Regional Daily |
Independent corp |
Partial |
3 clicks |
link |
| Washington Post |
US |
National Daily |
Independent corp |
Partial |
4 clicks |
link |
| Newsweek |
US |
Weekly |
Independent corp |
Partial |
4 clicks |
link |
| Toronto Sun |
Canada |
Regional Daily |
Major Corp |
No |
|
|
| National Post |
Canada |
National Daily |
Major Corp |
Partial |
3 clicks |
link |
| Montreal Gazette |
Canada |
Regional Daily |
Major Corp |
Partial |
3 clicks |
link |
| CTV |
Canada |
TV/Cable News |
Major Corp |
Corporate |
3 clicks |
link |
| Globe and Mail |
Canada |
National Daily |
Major Corp |
Corporate |
3 clicks |
link |
| Macleans |
Canada |
Weekly |
Major Corp |
No |
|
|
| TF1 |
France |
TV/Cable News |
Major Corp |
No |
|
|
| Bloomberg |
US |
Wire |
Major Corp |
No |
|
|
| ABC News |
US |
TV/Cable News |
Major Corp |
No |
|
|
| Denver Post |
US |
Regional Daily |
Major Corp |
Yes |
1 click |
link |
| San Jose Mercury News |
US |
Regional Daily |
Major Corp |
Yes |
1 click |
link |
| MSNBC |
US |
TV/Cable News |
Major Corp |
No |
|
|
| Chicago Sun Times |
US |
Regional Daily |
Major Corp |
No |
|
|
| CNN |
US |
TV/Cable News |
Major Corp |
Partial |
4+ clicks |
link |
| Time |
US |
Weekly |
Major Corp |
Partial |
4+ clicks |
link |
| LA Times |
US |
Regional Daily |
Major Corp |
Corporate |
4+ clicks |
link |
| Chicago Tribune |
US |
Regional Daily |
Major Corp |
Corporate |
4+ clicks |
link |
| CBS News |
US |
TV/Cable News |
Major Corp |
Corporate |
4+ clicks |
link |
| Washington Times |
US |
Regional Daily |
Rev Moon |
No |
|
|
| UPI |
US |
Wire |
Rev Moon |
No |
|
|
| The Australian |
Australia |
National Daily |
Rupert Murdoch |
No |
|
|
| Sky News |
UK |
TV/Cable News |
Rupert Murdoch |
No |
|
|
| Fox News |
US |
TV/Cable News |
Rupert Murdoch |
No |
|
|
| The Weekly Standard |
US |
Weekly |
Rupert Murdoch |
Corporate |
3 clicks |
link |
| Wall Street Journal |
US |
National Daily |
Rupert Murdoch |
Partial |
2 clicks |
link |
I broke out the public and non-profits to attempt to make the distinction here more stark. Relatively few outlets on this list have actual policies that discuss journalism in any detail. I'm being generous in the "partials", including a few I lament like The Nation, Salon and TalkingPointsMemo.
I'm feeling some regret about the decision to include the "corporate" policy category as visually it makes this look better than it is. Really a corporate policy against bribery or sexual harassment is all well and good, but it doesn't do anything to address the media malaise in effect today, however assiduously enforced.
The Washington Post as a "paper of record" to not have a publicly stated journalism policy is particularly shameful. The one I linked is pretty weak sauce as it is a PR release by the CEO which mentions a bit on the subject.
No surprise that the moonie and Murdoch outlets don't have a single real policy. The WSJ's policy is probably a relic of the pre-takeover days too.
Also you might notice the link to the corporate ethics policy for the weekly standard is actually News Corp's policy, but I've opted not to link to it for the other News Corp outlets, because I couldn't find that policy from their sites by direct link.
I will single out the Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News for having good policies, linked directly off the front page. They're part of the same chain "Media News Group" which owns many other papers, which I suspect (hope) also have such policies displayed and easy to find. The editor of the Denver Post even points out:
What follows is The Denver Post ethics policy. It is the product of months of work by reporters and editors on the staff to develop shared guidelines and principles by which we conduct ourselves. We believe it is important to share this policy with the public, so that you better understand the standards we live by. At the end of the day we want to be able to say we did our jobs honestly and fairly and are beholden to no one in the process. I know you will do your part to hold us accountable.
Greg Moore
Editor
Excelsior and all that, Mr. Moore.
I'll admit I got sick of doing this so not listed are a bunch of others that do not have journalism policies including: Vanity Fair, Harpers, The Hill, Roll Call, Mother Jones, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone.
What Outlets Should have Such Policies?
While it seems clear to me that primary news gatherers should have them, some of the outlets have a less compelling need to do so. Should blogs? Should Open Left? I'm not really sure, but I thought I would put the question out there. I think a case can be made that small operations rely so much on the reputations of the primary writers, so such policies don't matter (or at least are not critical). Whereas when you go to the New York Times, many readers won't care who wrote the article, the reputation of the paper itself is what you are trusting.
I will call out TalkingPointsMemo and FireDogLake since they've intentionally forayed into primary reporting (the former much moreso than the latter), so I think their readers should know what their policies are on sourcing, tips, anonymity and so forth. Maybe I'm wrong, and I won't stop reading either site over it.
Why is this important?
Well at the start I pointed out Glenn was able to criticize the NY Times for failing to meet its own standards, only because it has such standards. If you wanted to criticize the National Journal, to what standards could you appeal?
Yes, there are some generally understood principles of journalism, but we've all seen enough conservative legal "reasoning" to know they would find wriggling out of non-specific airy principles a breeze in any specific circumstance. But having a policy that says "thou shalt reveal why anonymity was granted" is easy enough to check and point out failures on.
I know there are other mechanisms for enforcing journalistic standards (editors, ombuds, offices of professionalism) but I think having a public declaration of these principles makes it much more difficult to get away with breaking them. Some of the above outlets may have internal guidance, but that has nowhere near the same effect.
As we've seen too often in Howard Kurtz' WaPo chats, in the absence of specific standards, serious ethical transgressions can be brushed aside or ignored too easily. |
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