My Northeastern ethics students offer some ideas on practicing journalism in the AI era

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics encompasses four broad principles:

• • Seek Truth and Report It
  • Minimize Harm
  • Act Independently
  • Be Accountable and Transparent

Each principle is accompanied by multiple bullet points, which in turn link to background information. But those are the starting points, and I think they provide a good rough guide for how to practice ethical journalism.

Whenever I teach one of our ethics classes, I ask my students to come up with a fifth principle as well as some explanatory material. This semester, I’m teaching our graduate ethics seminar. It’s a small class — five grad students and one undergrad. Last week I divided them into three teams of two and put them to work. Here’s what they came up with. (Longtime readers of Media Nation will recognize this exercise.) I’ve done a little editing, mainly for parallel construction.

Practice Digital Diligence

• Utilize AI for structural purposes such as transcribing interviews, searching for sources and entering data.
• Disclose the use of AI software when publishing artificial creations.
• Give credit by providing hyperlinks to other journalistic sources.
• Gain verification status on social platforms for credibility purposes.
• Do not engage with negative comments on social media posts.
• Engage with subscribers who might use social media to ask questions about a story.
• Apply AP style to social media posts.
• Give credit to any artists whose work you might borrow. Respect copyright law.

Use Modern Resources Responsibly

• Use social media and other digital tools, such as comment sections, to crowdsource information, connect with others and distribute news in a more accessible way.
• Do not use these tools to engage in ragebait or to get tangled in messy and unproductive discourse online.
• Acceptable uses of AI include gathering information, reformatting your reporting, transcribing interviews and similar non-public-facing tasks.
• AI should be used more effectively to guide your reporting rather than replacing it.

Be Compassionate

• Treat sources and communities with empathy and care.
• Avoid misleading sources or providing false hope — for instance, don’t promise someone who is suffering that you’ll be able to give them assistance.
• Do not exploit a source’s lack of media training. Provide a detailed explanation of your reporting methods when warranted.
• Avoid using jargon both in interacting with sources and in producing a story.
• Be a human first. If that clashes with your role as a journalist, that should be secondary.

***

In addition to their work on extending the Code of Ethics, I asked them on the first day of class to name one significant ethical issue that they think faces journalism. What follows is my attempt to summarize a longer conversation that we had in class.

► Stand up for our independence as journalists

► Explore and define the role of AI and truth in journalism

► Make sure we include a range of perspectives

► Push back against fake news, ragebait, etc.

► Avoid passive voice that evades responsibility

► Move beyond our preconceptions in pursuit of the truth

I hope you’ll agree that this is good, thought-provoking stuff. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the semester will go.

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