The Ethics of Care as a Universal Framework for Global Journalism

Now that people can interact with the news-making process from any part of the world, and any media content could have a worldwide impact, the practice of journalism has changed such that anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can be a journalist, and it becomes more urgent than ever to develop a shared international, universal understanding of ethical media behavior and production. A recent example of the varying ethical approaches to coverage of a global news story occurred when the media reported on the Middle East and African migrants seeking refuge in European host countries. Various studies have highlighted ethical and professional failures by the world’s media in this reporting (Horsti, 2012; Holmes & Castaneda, 2016; European Journalism Observatory, 2015). Egeland (2015), for example, argued that journalists often fail to cover stories about migrants, and that, when they do, they often don’t tell the full story, or they feature propaganda laid out by politicians (p. 2). But, she noted,We believe that much of the problem with the sensationalism, grandstanding, and jingoism found in the media reports of the migrant crisis occurred because of a lack of ethical behavior by the media. And, further, we argue that caring, as shown in the articles and Internet posts by the world’s media after the photograph of the drowned young migrant boy appeared in the news media, can be seen as evidence of the type of reporting that can occur when journalists adopt a universal ethical standard of care. As Egeland (2015) asserted, “Independent journalists reporting with care, humanity, and professionalism have enormous power to tell stories that create a new path” toward concern for the world’s refugees and migrants (p. 2).