Looked this up online it was available as a pdf. I think it needs to be an oath instead of a voluntary code of ethics. We’ve had almost a month to reflect on the outcome of the Nov. 8th election. The republicans are giddy, the progressives are snipping at each other trying to pin the blame for the outcome mostly on Clinton, some on third party candidates, others on Sanders but no one is placing the blame on those who are actually culpable in the election of a despot to the office of the POTUS. The news media. Not the “Fake News”. The news. Journalists are supposed to be the watchdogs of government and business. They are supposed to expose the facts, lies, and half-truths on both sides of a story in a fair and balanced way. They are supposed to be uninfluenced by their corporate sponsors and all the ideals listed in the SPJ code of ethics. In this election, the journalists were asleep at the wheel, or more likely drunk, and they ran the country off the road. They treated the whole process as a spectator sport. The same way middle school children watch as the bullies beat up the unpopular kid during lunch break. They didn’t call Trump out on anything, they didn’t call Sanders out on anything either, or Stein. They never asked any of them: “How?”“How do you plan to do the things you’re promising?” (They never asked Clinton either. I don’t know if they even asked her what her plan was or what solutions she had for the Nation’s problems.) They just sat back and watched the show that was Trump. They paid attention to the bully giving him all the free air time he needed to spout his message, without contradiction or reprimand, and went along with beating up the unpopular kid, Clinton, because that’s what everyone else was doing. They forgot to do their job. And listening to some journalists’ comments lately I don’t think any of them know what their job is. Their job is to ask the unpopular questions fairly to each side and give each side equal time to respond. Their job is to give the public access to the facts of a story in a clear and concise way. Their job is not to judge. Their job is to get the public to ask questions they wouldn’t normally ask or don’t think to ask. Journalists verify their sources, distinguish facts from opinions in their stories, and don’t intentionally lie, or give a platform to lies without exposing them to be lies. I can go on, and I feel that I need to, however, that would entitle several more pages and devolve into a rant no one would care to read. So, all close by asking this: How can there be “Fake News” when there is no “REAL News?”
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