Ethics and Laws Tutorial for Journalism

Author: Chen Xuan
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-03-01
Features: For the convenience of research, here, we define the meaning of morality and ethics as norms for how interpersonal behavior should be conducted. News communication is an exchange of information between people, or a dissemination of new and important information by social news media to a broad audience. How people's behavior should be in the activity of news information dissemination is the content of news ethics research. In the discussions and analyses of this book, we interpret ethics and morality as having the same meaning, that is, news ethics is news morality. Both have the same meaning, referring to the norms for how news communication behavior should be conducted. Since the national education department has included news law and ethics as compulsory courses for university journalism and communication majors, there have already been several textbooks or monographs on news law and ethics. Law and morality are the two main behavioral norms in human society. Law relies on morality for support, and morality relies on law for backing, complementing each other. There is indeed a certain rationale for studying them together. However, perhaps because law and morality belong to two different disciplines, discussing them together in one book to achieve a seamless integration and a cohesive system is not easy. From this perspective, Chen Xuan's book is quite distinctive. The overall arrangement of the book places morality before law. This reflects the author's unique conception. In the history of human social development, morality is far older than law. Law originates from morality. Natural law and customary law are essentially judgments of right and wrong based on certain moral principles recognized by society. The core norm of news law, "freedom of the press," was initially proposed as a moral demand. In John Milton's classic speech (A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing), there is a deep reverence for human reason and conscience, and "freedom of the press" became a legal norm only a century or two later. It remains an important rule of news ethics to this day. Discussing morality before law follows a natural progression, at least technically, and can also avoid unnecessary repetition. Second, discussing morality from the perspective of its fundamental categories. For example, good and evil, as a fundamental category of morality, are a recurring topic in the book. The author correctly points out the relativity of good and evil, and thus people, including journalists, often face various dilemmas when deciding what "should" be done. The book provides numerous examples to repeatedly illustrate the patterns of moral paradoxes in news work and the principles for dealing with them. Without the historical statements, the discussions of news morality in this book are essentially structured around this main thread. I believe this approach is far superior to the two common ways seen in some works on news ethics: one is to list the basic principles of socialist morality (such as serving the people) and the basic requirements of news work (such as the principle of truthfulness), explain their meanings, and demand that journalists strictly abide by them; the other is to enumerate various forms of unethical news behavior, such as fake news, paid news, libel, invasion of privacy, plagiarism, and even leaking state secrets, and state what should be done if journalists violate them. Discussing morality without reference to its fundamental categories essentially turns what should be an intrinsic moral appeal into an external moral dogma, which is not conducive to people truly grasping moral norms. Moreover, this content inevitably overlaps with the content of journalism, communication, and news law. Third, discussing law from the perspective of protecting citizens' rights. Morality promotes good, it affirms. Law punishes evil, it affirms through negation. Because morality demands the promotion of good deeds, it is based on obligations. Because of the punitive function of law, people often misunderstand it as merely prescribing various obligations and punishing violations of those obligations. In fact, this is not the case. Law primarily protects people's rights, and its coercive power mainly lies in punishing actions that infringe on people's rights (which are generally considered evil). The justice and rationality of any legal sanction lie in the fact that the act it punishes infringes on the rights of others (whether individuals or the public). Therefore, law is based on rights. In the past, when discussing news law, there was a popular formula: first, affirm that citizens of our country enjoy the rights and freedoms stipulated in the Constitution, then point out that these rights are relative rather than absolute, and that we oppose the abuse of rights, followed by lengthy discussions on punishing various abuses: incitement, leaking state secrets, pornography, libel, etc. Yet, the meaning, content, ideological origins, and operational procedures of constitutional rights themselves are rarely discussed, if at all, as if news law is merely about how to comply with the control of administrative authorities or superiors, or how to avoid infringing on others—it is merely administrative law plus tort law. This is at least incomplete. This book, however, starts by discussing the various rights of news activities, pointing out that they all originate from the provisions of the Constitution of our country, and it offers the author's views on current hot issues such as citizens' right to know and journalists' right to interview. Now, our country's leaders have repeatedly called for upholding the authority of the Constitution, correcting all actions that violate it, and pointed out that governing according to law primarily means governing according to the Constitution, and governing according to law primarily means governing according to the Constitution. The discussions in this book are profoundly meaningful. Chen Xuan has been teaching news law and ethics for many years and has frequently traveled abroad for research and to Hong Kong to lecture. This book is the crystallization of her years of teaching and research, so the materials are also very rich and up-to-date. She received guidance from renowned teachers in the field of journalism and communication and has a family background in law. She combines natural talent with diligence, and her teaching and research complement each other, leading to substantial achievements—this is no coincidence. I firmly believe she will achieve even greater success in this field.