Communication Ethics Today

This collection of contributions to Ethical Space journal comes from the first volume. Papers, articles and interviews have been revisited by their authors to expand upon the original publications, giving this volume new value to academics, journalists and those interested in communications ethics.

Professor Clifford Christians, of the University of Illinois-Urbana, says: "This book is a search for truth. There are a number of crucial issues in communication ethics today, but certainly a believable concept of truth is indispensable. As the norm of justice is to politics and stewardship to business, so truth-telling sets the standard in communications. Truth is communication’s master principle, and the writers here demand it for themselves, and from the media professionals and academics their chapters represent. Rather than the news media lurching along from one crisis to another with an empty centre, the authors of this book seek for credible variations on truth. These chapters en masse promote truth-telling as the over-arching ethical framework for understanding the media’s mission and practice. Rather than merely identifying the issue of truth as important for twenty-first century professional ethics, truth and its nuances are elaborated in terms of communication institutions, technologies, regulation, theory, and practices."

Editorial Introduction: Richard Keeble
Preface: Clifford Christians
Views: Is journalism ethics and oxymoron? Roy Greenslade
The Hutton aftermath: Nick Jones
Face to Face: Kristine Lowe interviews Johan Galtung, the eminent peace researcher

Papers
Ethical issues in alternative journalism: Chris Atton
Press Complaints Commission: Privacy and accuracy in ten years of self-regulation of the British press: Chris Frost
When rights collide: Free speech, corporations and moral rights: Dean Ritz
The media and moral literacy: Clifford Christians
Ethical work practices, communication and organisational commitment: Paul R. Jackson
Corporate Social Responsibility through communicational discipline: Bas van der Linden and Jan Jonker
Journalists as interpreters: Gadamer and elements of a communication ethics in news practice: Donald Matheson
Ethical messages: R.H. Tawney confronts the Information Age: Alistair Duff and Rob Melville
Journalism online: Ethics as usual? Ari Heinonen
'What universe are you from?' Everyday tragedies and the ethics of press intrusion into grief: John Tulloch
Secrecy, communications strategy and democratic values: Jerry Palmer
Towards a definition of communication encompassing ethical dimensions: Rolv Mikkel Blakar and Hilde Eileen Nafstad
Between trust and anxiety: on the moods of Information Society: Rafael Capurro
Paedophiles in the community: inter-agency conflict, whistleblowers and the local press: Simon Cross and Sharon Lockyer
Partisan, empathic and invitational criticism: the challenge of materiality: Omar Swartz
Communication and the machine of government: Anne Gregory
Articles: What's new in the Phillis Report? Anne Gregory
Absolutism and the confidential controversy: Michael Foley
Do journalists have the right to be wrong? Richard Orange
Reviews: Out of all the scores of communication ethics texts we read, one often holds a special place. Six academics reveal their favourites