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| Image Source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/09/basic-checking-account-fees-at-10-largest-banks/ |
V. I shall not let personal motives
or interest influence me in the performance of my duties; nor shall I accept or
offer any present, gift or consideration of a nature which may cast doubt on my
personal integrity. –Journalism Code of Ethics
Whatever the cases may be, whether you are an
ordinary citizen or a journalist, you shouldn’t let personal motives or interest
influence or hinder you in the performance of your duties. Do things the way
they should be, act as ethical as you should be, be resourceful as you can be
and always be at the right side of anything.
But these actions are somehow imaginative, for we as
an ordinary person or as a professional would be, at some point in time, at the
peak of choosing whether to follow what is ethical or whether to go to what is
more convenient.
Just as, when a journalist is at the point of
needing an important information but the person who happened to have the
information don’t coordinate with him/her then the reporter would find and do
whatever action and means they could just to acquire the needed information,
even by the means of paying their source. That action is said to be Checkbook
Journalism.
Then, what is
Checkbook Journalism? Checkbook
Journalism is the practice of paying someone for a news story and especially
for granting an interview. It is now practice in Great Britain and most of tabloid
publication makes use of this. But with that being said, is it ethical?
If you happened to read the Philippine Journalism
code of ethics, try to remember what was said on Roman numeral five. It was
clearly stated there that offering any present, gift or consideration of a
nature which may cast doubt on the journalist’s integrity shouldn’t be
implemented. And if you look at it in a different point of view, paying money
on your source is an act of offering, because you let them choose whether to
accept it or not, and so it is simply unethical. But then again, if you look on
the journalist’s point of view, they do it just because of work, and if they
don’t then they can’t write the story, and if they can’t write the story then
they’ll be fired, and if they are fired then they are nothing. It’s all because
of work and nothing else and paying would be the most practical of all.
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