Edward Wasserman, Ph.D
Washington and Lee University, USA
New communications technologies pose novel challenges to the prevailing ethical standards that are central to traditional notions of journalistic professionalism. Such mainstay journalistic tenets as fairness, avoidance of needless harm, neutrality, independence, truth-telling, respect for privacy, and public service are all laboring under unparalleled strains thanks to the speed, reach, permanence and interactivity of Internet-based news technologies,
and accompanying changes in the business practices of news organizations. This paper will examine the nature of those strains, and offer observations about the ways in which journalistic practice can be guided in ways that both respect appropriate ethical concerns and accommodate the industrial and professional goals that news organizations seek to advance by embracing 21st century news technologies.
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