Ethical Journalism

The article entitled ‘Media Prima pulls out ‘racist’ Ramadan ads’ by Yow Hong Chieh indicates that Media Prima Bhd deleted a controversial series of Ramadan commercials on 8TV channel. This advertisement had drawn much attention from public when it was released. Besides that, there are many complains and criticism from public because the advertisement was about a Chinese girl who eating apple in public and being loud during Muslim fasting month. After that, Media Prima explained that the advertisement is just a suggestion for non-Muslims what to do and behave during Ramadan. Then, the Media Prima chief operating officer Ahmad Izham Omar also calmed the public by updating topics on Twitter. In addition, Media Prima had done the same action last year after the Hari Raya advertisement was released. Apart from pulling out the advertisements, 8TV was fined by Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) in 2004 because of the advertisement matter.

Schriver (1997) stated that content is important even if the pictures or images are attractive. Hence, the content not only must be meaningful, but also must be neutral and do not have any bad attitudes towards others.

In addition, there are many codes of ethics in different fields of media. Although the code of ethics is just a guide, I think that it is very important as all these ethics will improve the content or work. To publish news or an advertisement without any criticism and controversy, journalists and advertisers have to obey the ethics, for example, programs should not use language or images in a way which is likely to discriminate against any religious or cultural.

According to Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) (2011), there is a code of ethic to remind journalist do not put unnecessary emphasis on personal characteristics including race, religious belief and others.

Thus, codes of ethics are the guide for producing good context and ethical journalism.

References:

Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance 2011, Media Alliance Codes of Ethics, viewed 13rd November 2011, <http://www.alliance.org.au/media-alliance-code-of-ethics>.

Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design, Wiley Computer Pub, New York.