Stephen banning

Professor of communication, bradley university

As the Digital Revolution breaks new ground in communication, the applicability of journalism values for news continues to be questioned by those inside and outside of the media.[i] This essay proposes that the many aspects of ethical standards of work established over a century and a half ago still apply because the reasons that journalistic ethics were originally created have remained the same despite a change in how we send and receive information. The original rationale for the establishment of journalism standards of conduct in the nineteenth century was the need for journalism to educate people so that they could become an informed electorate. Indicative of this, at an 1876 Missouri Press Association meeting, Columbia, Missouri, publisher William Switzler proclaimed that the press was “an honest and sleepless sentinel of the watchtower of their [the public’s] liberties.”[ii] These standards were created by state press associations dealing with challenges arising from the Industrial Revolution and the Penny Press, which had given publishers great power with little oversight.[iii]

This essay explores the similar challenges presented by today’s Digital Revolution, positing that the press organization codes of ethics emerging in the early twentieth century still apply to journalism problems facing us in the twenty-first century, having remained the same despite technology transforming from paper and ink to computer chips and binary code.[iv] This is because the change in technology has not changed the need for communitarian-based truthtelling, which remains the foundation of democracy even in an age of virtual communication.

The First Industrial Revolution was the impetus for today’s mass media. Factories were created to manufacture goods and people were needed to run the factories, causing a migration from rural areas to cities.[v] This concentration of humanity created by production, ironically itself created a ready market for many goods, including newspapers. At the same time, newly invented printing presses, some steam powered, meant printing happened at virtually lightning speed, allowing news that had just occurred to be sold to workers heading to and from train stations.[vi] It was a business model that turned entrepreneurs into press barons, causing newspapers and their readers to grow exponentially.[vii]

The Industrial Revolution-fueled Penny Press began with James Gordon Bennet and Benjamin Day in the 1830s, as they experimented with new technology and social changes. Soon, the Penny Press introduced many of the news norms that continue to this day, including attention-grabbing headlines, the reporter beat system, and interviews to make a story more interesting.[viii] However, the Penny Press and the mass media also introduced a mammoth ability to mislead the public.[ix] Contemporary with this phenomenon was a growing cadre of editors and publishers who believed a professional model was needed to curb the excesses of rogue printers.[x]

The idea of professions had arrived in the nineteenth century as doctors, lawyers, and the clergy asserted that the new society (created by the Industrial Revolution) needed regulation for groups who had power over communities and were important to society.[xi] Consequently, doctors, lawyers, and the clergy became the first professions, requiring university training, professional associations, and codes of ethics.[xii] Following this framework in the twentieth century, the first university school of journalism was founded at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and another shortly thereafter at Columbia University.[xiii]

In the nineteenth century, many state press associations followed the professional model and created standards of work, which morphed into professional codes of ethics in the early twentieth century.[xiv] Codes of ethics by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and Sigma Delta Chi had very similar elements, emerging in the 1920s and becoming the first widely adopted journalism codes of ethics.[xv] The most widely recognized code was the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Canons of Journalism, adopted in 1923.[xvi] These items were based on community values in a democratic society where importance was given to having an informed electorate capable of participating in governmental rule. The Canons of Journalism had seven elements based on telling the truth: 1) responsibility, 2) freedom of the press, 3) independence, 4) sincerity, truthfulness, accuracy, 5) impartiality, 6) fair play, and 7) decency.[xvii]

An important aspect of the Canons of Journalism is that they were put in place to protect society. This focus on the community, or communitarian approach, shapes how a new code should be formed, with benefit for the community as the raison d’ être.[xviii] The fact that information is spread through silicon chips rather than wood pulp doesn’t change why journalism standards were as important a hundred years ago as they are today. Therefore, the purpose of a code today would have the same foundation as it did almost a century ago in viewing journalism as an educator of the people, or what Herbert Altschull in Agents of Power called the democratic assumption, the essential nature of an informed electorate for the functioning of democracy.[xix]

Therefore, as in the original Canons of Journalism, the first item in a code of ethics today should be responsibility, without which there is no reason for a code of ethics. A second element for a modern-day code of ethics is accuracy, typified by using more than one source and showing all sides of an issue. Avoiding fabrication is another important element that builds on accuracy and guards against being used by bad actors trying to use rumors to create a false narrative. Using a confirmed source is the first step in this direction. Privacy is not mentioned in the Constitution but is implied and this should also be an element, although standards of privacy in the digital universe vary from region to region. For instance, Europe’s “Right to Be Forgotten” concept is not legislated in the United States, suggesting that while the amount of privacy varies, the need for it remains.[xx]

Avoiding gatekeeping is important in providing a holistic view of the truth to the public. This is one aspect of neutrality that is difficult to find among news channels today, in that while many outlets cover the same stories, most do not cover more than one perspective in a single report. Reducing gatekeeping is critical because a journalistic responsibility to society is not fulfilled by journalists telling people that to think, but by journalists supplying the public with a marketplace of ideas.

Avoiding sensationalism is important because sensationalism involves a focus on elements of instant gratification rather than lasting importance. Using sensationalism undermines respect, destroys journalistic credibility, and erodes the democratic assumption.

The journalism professionalization movement has passed, with little chance of its return, and the luster of a professional class with a high responsibility of societal oversight has been tarnished by the actual lack of responsibility. Even the classic professions of doctors, lawyers, and the clergy have seen legislation passed that penalizes them for failing to do what was once supposed to be their calling. However, the professional model shines a light on why we need ethics today.[xxi] The twentieth century codes were based on protecting the community, and while it may have been the first time that ethical codes like this were enacted, communities for millennia have formed norms of behavior in which a responsibility to tell the truth was foundational.[xxii]

For over two centuries, the United States has been the beacon of democracy, however imperfect, in the world. The system still stands today, despite efforts to make it capitulate entirely, and continues to find the propellant to keep it running, at least for now.[xxiii] With this in mind, perhaps the most important component of that fuel is responsible truthtelling journalists following a code which assures democracy is scrutinized objectively and communicated truthfully.[xxiv]

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[i] Peter Suciu, “Elon Musk Questioned the Value of ‘Legacy Media’,” Forbes, October 4, 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2023/10/04/elon-musk-questioned-value-of-legacy-media/; Meredith D. Clark, “It’s Time for a New Set of News Values. Here’s Where We Should Start,” Poynter Institute for Media Studies, June 27, 2016, https://www.poynter.org/newsletters/2016/its-time-for-a-new-set-of-news-values-heres-where-we-should-start/; Stephen A. Banning, Journalism Standards of Work Today: Using History to Create a New Code of Journalism Ethics (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020), 132.

[ii] William Switzler, “June 6, 1976 Annual Missouri Press Association Address,” in History and Transactions of the Editors and Publishers Association of Missouri: 1867 -1876, comp. J.W. Barrett (Canton: Canton Press, 1876), 123.

[iii] Stephen A. Banning, “Press Clubs Champion Journalism Education,” in Journalism 1908: Birth of a Profession, ed. Betty Winfield (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2008), 65; Stephen A. Banning, “Truth is Our Ultimate Goal,” American Journalism 16, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 17; Stephen A. Banning, “The Professionalization of Journalism: A Nineteenth Century Beginning,” Journalism History 24, no. 4 (Winter 1998-1999): 158; Stephen A. Banning, “The Maine Press Association Takes a Stand: Promoting Professional Identity in the Nineteenth Century,” Maine Historical Journal 33, no. 2 (Fall 2020): 83-98; Stephen A. Banning, “Fully Conscious of their Power: Nineteenth Century Michigan Editors Search for Journalistic Professionalism,” American Journalism 36, no. 3 (Fall 2019): 1-24.

[iv] The Digital Revolution refers to the change from analog to digital technology and is sometimes referred to as the Third Industrial Revolution or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It is alternately called the Digital Age. Clifford G. Christians, Media Ethics and Global Justice in the Digital Age (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 7; Gabriele Balbi, The Digital Revolution: A Short History of an Ideology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024), 39; Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution (New York: Penguin Books Limited, 2017).

[v] Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Lectures on Economic Growth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 109.

[vi] James Moran, Printing Presses: History and Development from the Fifteenth Century to Modern Times (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), 123; William Savage, A Dictionary in the Art of Printing (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1841), 595; Henry Winram Dickinson, A Short History of the Steam Engine (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1939), 97-8; Philip B. Meggs, A History of Graphic Design (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998), 130.

[vii] James L. Crouthamel, Bennett’s New York Herald and the Rise of the Popular Press (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1989), 37.

[viii] David R. Spencer, The Yellow Journalism, The Press and America’s Emergence as a World Power (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2007), 22; James Aucoin, The Evolution of American Investigative Journalism (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2006), 24.

[ix] Samuel Hopkins Adams, The Great American Fraud (Chicago: American Medical Association, 1905), 5, 73.

[x] Eileen N. Gilligan, Competing for News: Reporters use of Competition and Cooperation in the Production of News (Madison, WS: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 49; David B. Sachsman and David W. Bulla, eds. Sensationalism, Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals, and Disasters in 19^th Century Reporting (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2013), xxi.

[xi] Harold M. Vollmer and Donald L. Mills, Professionalization (Englewood Cliffs: NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966), 2; Magali Sarfatti Larson, The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977), 6; Stephen A. Banning, “Unearthing the Origin of Press Clubs in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” Master’s thesis, University of Missouri, 1993.

[xii] Philip Elliot, The Sociology of the Professions (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973), 40.

[xiii] Stephen A. Banning, “Press Clubs Champion Journalism Education,” in Journalism 1908: Birth of a Profession, ed. Betty Winfield (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2008), 65; Stephen A. Banning, “The Cradle of Professional Journalistic Education in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” Journalism History Monographs 4, no. 1 (2000) [Online serial], http://www.scrips.ohiou.edu/mediahistory.

[xiv] Banning, “The Professionalization of Journalism,”158; Banning, “Fully Conscious of their Power,” 1-24; Banning, “The Maine Press Association Takes a Stand,” 83-98.

[xv] Banning, “Truth is Our Ultimate Goal,” 17; Stephen A. Banning, “The Missouri Press Association: A Study of the Beginning Motivations, 1867-1876,” Proceedings of the Conference of the American Journalism Historians Association, Part I: Journalism History before the Twentieth Century, USA, (Fall 1992). Bert Bostrom, Talent, Truth and Energy: Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi (Chicago: Society of Professional Journalists, 1984), vi; William Meharry Glenn, The Sigma Delta Chi Story: 1909-1949 (Coral Gables, FL: 1949); Charles C. Clayton, Sigma Delta Chi: Fifty Years of Freedom (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1959), 43; Alf Pratt, Gods Within the Machine: A History of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1923-1993 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995), 2; Alice Fox Pins, Read All About It: 50 Years of the ASNE (n.p.: American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1974).

[xvi] Charles L. Allen, Canons of Journalism, Adopted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Convention 1925 [sic] (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Studio Press, 1928), 1.

[xvii] Allen, Canons of Journalism, 1.

[xviii] Stephen A. Banning, Journalism Standards of Work Today, 132.

[xix] J. Herbert Altschull, Agents of Power: The Role of the News Media in Human Affairs (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1984), 59.

[xx] Amir Mizroch, “What is the ‘Right to Be Forgotten?’” Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2014, https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-the-right-to-be-forgotten-1400011724?tesla=y.

[xxi] Silvio Waisbord, Reinventing Professionalism: Journalism and News in a Global Perspective (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2013), 47.

[xxii] Christians, Media Ethics and Global Justice in the Digital Age, 111.

[xxiii] Katie Robertson, “Trump and Musk Attack Journalists by Name in Social Media Posts,” New York Times, February 7, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/business/media/trump-musk-attack-journalists.html; Richard Luscombe, “Republican Senator Claims Video Floating Killing of Journalists was a ‘Joke’,” The Guardian, April 7, 2025; Liam Scott, “Trump’s Crackdown Endangers Reporters Nationwide: Foreign Journalists who worked for U.S.-Funded Outlets Could Face Persecution,” Foreign Policy, April 15, 2025, https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/15/trump-usagm-journalist-safety-prison-risks-press-freedom-voa-rfe-rl-rfa/; “SPJ Leads Over 40 Groups in Joint Statement Condemning Recent Government Press Attacks,” Society of Professional Journalists, February 21, 2025, https://www.spj.org/spj-leads-over-40-groups-in-joint-statement-condemning-recent-government-press-attacks/.

[xxiv] Victor Pickard, “We Must Save Public Media to Change It,” The Nation, April 15, 2025, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/public-broadcasting-media-democracy/; Saba Long, “The Media Industry Adopts an Insurgent Strategy,” Nieman Lab, Nieman Foundation, https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/the-media-industry-adopts-an-insurgent-strategy/; C. Edwin Baker, Media, Markets and Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 157.