10. UK journalists’ views on ethics and the acceptability of ethically questionable reporting practices

23rd April 2025

10.1 Introduction

Perceptions about what constitutes ethical behaviour on the job are a core component of how journalists see themselves and their role in democratic society. In an information age when anyone can be a publisher, practitioners commonly cite normative standards in making the argument that this does not mean anyone can be a journalist. This chapter draws on responses to the survey of UK journalists in 2023 – and its predecessor in late 2015 (Thurman et al. 2016) – to outline changes and consistencies in their understanding of what is and is not ethical.

At the time of the 2015 survey, the findings of the Leveson Inquiry into British newsroom practices (Leveson 2012) seemed very much on journalists’ minds. That inquiry, spurred by the fallout from the notorious phone-hacking scandal in the 2000s, reviewed British media ethics, highlighted deficiencies in press oversight procedures, and made recommendations for changing them.

The reaction from the British press was decidedly mixed. Now, more than a decade after publication of the Leveson recommendations, the regulatory picture remains murky. At the same time, the move of UK journalists into positions of authority at prominent international media outlets based in the US – including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and CNN – is shining a spotlight on what constitutes acceptable ethical practice on both sides of the Atlantic (Grynbaum 2024).

Within this context, this chapter examines UK journalists’ responses to two sets of questions related to occupational ethics. The first of these asked about journalists’ general ethical orientations and views about the importance of overarching professional standards, while the second sought to understand what they consider appropriate actions in particular situations, including those related to:

Payments and other inducements connected to sourcing information.
The need for permission and, conversely, the use of subterfuge in obtaining information.
The use of unverified content.

Our analysis of these data included looking for differences according to journalists’ employment status, gender, and rank.

10.2 General ethical orientations

Around 60% of UK journalists agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that ‘what is ethical for journalists should always be determined by professional standards, regardless of situation and personal judgement’. That sounds like a clear – if perhaps not ringing – endorsement of ethical guidelines. But support for an overarching professional ethos was far greater in 2015 (Thurman et al. 2016), when a whopping 94% of journalists agreed that ‘Journalists should always adhere to codes of professional ethics, regardless of situation and context’. Although some variation might be expected because of the change in phrasing, such a large disparity suggests a shift away from an overwhelmingly dominant view that professional codes or standards are essential sources of ethical guidance.

Figure 10.1

In 2023, UK practitioners were more likely to agree that ‘what is ethical for journalists should be determined by professional standards unless extraordinary circumstances require disregarding them’ [emphasis added]. As Figure 10.1 shows, this statement garnered agreement from roughly two thirds (67%) of the UK respondents, nearly twice the proportion who agreed with a comparable statement in 2015. In the earlier survey, more than 40% of respondents felt such circumstances were relatively unimportant; in 2023, only 14% were willing to ignore them, suggesting a shift away from one-size-fits-all guidelines and towards more situational ethics. Again, a slight change in the wording of the statement – particularly the change from ‘moral standards’ in 2015 to ‘professional standards’ in 2023 – could have affected how journalists thought about this question. Nevertheless, the extent of the change in perspective is notable.

This said, the two other statements in this question set revealed uncertainty among UK journalists about both situational ethics and the role of personal judgement in ethical decision-making. Asked for their views on the statement ‘What is ethical for journalists should depend on each specific situation’, respondents in 2023 were nearly evenly divided; in 2015, a clearer majority agreed with the statement, a difference that is statistically significant. Opinions about the role of personal judgement also reflected considerable uncertainty. Although 60% of UK journalists in 2023 disagreed that ‘What is ethical for journalists should be a matter of personal judgement’ – the statement generating the clearest level of disapproval among the four options – nearly a quarter still registered a neutral view. In 2015, this statement garnered statistically significant higher levels of agreement.

A closer look shows a moderate correlation between these two statements, both of which acknowledge the innate subjectivity in ethical evaluation: Journalists who agreed that what is ethical for journalists depends on the specific situation were also significantly more likely to agree that what is ethical for journalists is a matter of personal judgement. The increased resistance to subjective ethical decision-making in 2023 may be linked to the uncertainty surrounding who qualifies as a journalist and a push for a more unified professional understanding of ethics in the UK journalism industry.

10.2.1 Freelancers on the rise: employment situation and ethics

Incorporating data related to employment status and gender adds nuance to our findings. Over the past quarter-century, journalistic work has become increasingly precarious (Chadha and Steiner 2021), with industry reports suggesting around 8,000 journalism staff jobs were lost in 2023 in the UK, US, and Canada alone (Aberneithie and Tobitt 2024). Cuts continued in 2024 for journalists across a range of UK outlets (Tobitt 2024). It is no surprise, then, that freelancing has been described as ‘one of journalism’s few growth sectors’ (Crowley 2024). The survey confirms the rise in the number of journalists working freelance in the UK, from 17% of respondents in the 2015 survey to 28% in 2023. Freelancers tend to work from home, often for multiple clients on multiple projects, and their earnings are typically significantly lower than the salaries of less precariously employed reporters (Thurman et al. 2016; Gollmitzer 2024). Despite these differences, the survey data suggest that freelancers and staff journalists share broadly similar views on whether and when questionable reporting practices – such as payments, inducements, and verification – are justified. This is discussed further below.

A clear majority in both groups disliked the idea of relying on personal judgement for ethical decisions (see Figure 10.2). Similar percentages of freelancers (60%) and journalists with a permanent contract (58%) agreed that ethical decisions should always be guided by professional standards (see Figure 10.3). Disagreement with the statement that ethics should always follow professional standards also was nearly identical, at just under 20%.

Figure 10.2

Research indicates that journalists increasingly labour in what can be termed a transitional work environment, with many having experienced traditional newsrooms before transitioning to independent work (Holton 2016). Both freelancers and staffers may therefore have had similar exposure to considerations of ethics and regulation.

Figure 10.3

10.2.2 Ethical orientation: does gender matter?

The survey corroborates previous research (Antunovic et al. 2019) indicating women constitute a majority of the freelance workforce, with around 58% of the freelance respondents identifying as female. In contrast, among journalists with fixed or part-time contracts (which includes journalists working in full-time permanent, part-time permanent, full-time fixed-term, and part-time fixed-term contracts), 47% identified as female, while 52% identified as male. So, does gender matter to UK journalists’ ethical orientation?

The answer is that it seems to matter more than employment status. Journalists who identified as male were more likely to support the idea that ethics is a matter of personal judgement: although 62% of females rejected this idea, only 55% of males did, a difference that is statistically significant (see Figure 10.4). Interpreting this finding is complicated by the fact that male journalists were more likely to be in management positions or on hard-news beats; however, our findings are in line with previous work identifying gender as significantly affecting UK journalism students’ views on ethics (Ball et al. 2006).

Conversely, female journalists were more likely to agree with the statement that ‘What is ethical for journalists should be determined by professional standards unless extraordinary circumstances require otherwise’: 72% of female journalists supported this idea, compared with 64% of male journalists, a finding that is, again, statistically significant (see Figure 10.4).

We turn now to UK journalists’ views on specific actions that raise ethical questions. Our findings indicate greater stability of perspectives over time but also some new disparities among groups of practitioners.

Figure 10.4

10.3 Ethically questionable actions

10.3.1 Journalists’ relationship with their sources: payments and inducements

One set of ethically questionable practices in the survey related to journalists’ perceptions about ethical issues in their interactions with sources. Here, we found minor change since these questions were asked in 2015.

First was the question of payments, both to and by journalists. While just over half of UK journalists in 2023 believed it is unethical to pay sources for confidential business or government information under any circumstances, 45% felt doing so could be justified on occasion compared with 51% who thought this in 2015. Such payment is permissible under UK professional codes, which allow for the possibility of public interest exceptions to general guidelines that frown on paying sources – but prohibit doing so in some specific circumstances, for instance paying criminals or witnesses in a criminal trial (IPSO 2024).

But what about inducements to journalists themselves? The survey indicates almost all UK journalists (94%) considered accepting payments from sources to be unacceptable. This question was not new to the 2023 survey; 96% felt accepting money was never acceptable in 2015. No journalists in either survey felt the practice was always justified.

Two new questions were asked in this survey about these potentially blurred boundaries. While nine out of ten journalists (91%) in 2023 said they would not approve of producing promotional stories under any circumstances, ‘freebies’ were a greyer area: 56% said they would not approve of getting a free product or service under any circumstances, but 43% said they could see freebies as justified on occasion. Although we can only speculate about the reasons for these responses, they may relate to the precarity of journalism, tight newsroom budgets, and perhaps the role of influencers on social media, where it is acceptable to promote partnerships with commercial brands (see Figure 10.5).

Figure 10.5

10.3.2 Permissions and subterfuge

The collection and use of material for stories is another potentially fraught ethical area. The survey asked three questions about using information without permission, but in a slightly different way from the 2015 survey, which split questions between ‘official’ and ‘personal’ documents without specifying the owners of such material. Most UK journalists in 2023 found using confidential documents without authorisation to be acceptable: 78% believed doing so is justified ‘on occasion’, and around 7% thought that it is ‘always justified’.

In 2015, journalists were asked whether ‘personal materials’ should be used, and only 47% thought use could be justified on occasion. In 2023, the question was modified, and journalists were asked to consider two kinds of personal materials: those owned by ‘powerful’ and ‘ordinary’ people. The numbers remained almost the same as in 2015 when journalists considered powerful people, presumably politicians, celebrities, and those in public life: 77% in 2023 thought using personal materials about these people was justified on occasion, and 3% thought it was always justified. However, the feelings were mixed on the use of such materials about those who have not put themselves into the public eye: around half (53%) thought this was never justifiable, with another 47% saying it was only justified on occasion (see Figure 10.5).

Professional codes, such as the UK Editors Code of Practice, stress individuals have a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy, stating that ‘account will be taken of the complainant’s own public disclosures of information and the extent to which the material complained about is already in the public domain or will become so’ (IPSO 2024). Journalists’ views expressed in the survey may reflect unease or confusion around what can acceptably be put in the public domain via social media (Rumbold and Wilson 2019) but also increasing awareness of the laws of data protection.

UK codes of practice also say that misrepresentation and subterfuge ‘can generally be justified only in the public interest and then only when the material cannot be obtained by other means’ (IPSO 2024). Journalists in the survey, however, had mixed views on this issue. Around 55% believed pretending to be someone else is never justified, while 45% thought it is justified on occasion. There was far stronger support for other forms of misrepresentation, however. More than three quarters of journalists (79%) thought it is justified on occasion to use hidden recording devices, with only 20% thinking it is never justified.

10.3.3 Verification

The survey also asked whether publishing unverified content is justified. Compared with 75% in 2015, 69% of UK journalists in 2023 thought doing so is unacceptable under any circumstances, but the rest thought it is justified on some occasions. This response may reflect the rapidity of the news cycle, the use of user-generated content to satisfy the demands of online news, and the practice of lifting stories from others’ websites. In their work in other European countries, Nygren and Widholm talk about the ‘softer’ attitude to verification in a liquid news environment, where journalists feel audiences may have lower expectations of veracity for news published online and find it acceptable for verification to be done ‘during the process rather than before publication’ (2018, 48).

In relation to specific actions, our findings again suggest a complex relationship between gender and journalistic ethics, perhaps influenced by cultural and organisational factors (Hanitzsch and Hanusch 2012), such as the greater prevalence of men in management and on hard-news beats. But in general, the survey supports previous research that found gender to be a significant factor in UK journalism students’ attitudes towards using confidential business, government, or personal documents without authorisation, with female students notably less approving of methods associated with privacy invasion (Ball et al. 2006). The 2023 survey shows female journalists were significantly less likely to approve of the personal materials of either ordinary or powerful people being published. Only 41% of female journalists, compared with 53% of the males, said publishing personal material from ordinary people can be justified on occasion. And although both genders were more open to publishing personal materials about powerful people, 81% of male journalists found it justified on occasion compared with 74% of female journalists, a difference that is statistically significant.

When it comes to publishing confidential business or government documents, 20% of female journalists disapproved, while 9% of the male journalists disapproved. In fact, 10% of male journalists thought publishing such materials is always justified, compared with 3% of female journalists. The survey revealed similar statistically significant gender disparities related to the acceptability of paying for confidential information: 60% of female journalists, but just 48% of males, did not approve under any circumstances. On the other hand, more than half the male journalists believed paying for confidential information is justifiable on occasion, compared with fewer than 40% of female journalists.

Journalists’ ethical decision-making can vary based on organisational constraints and social context (Berkowitz and Limor 2003). In the survey, we found that rank within the organisation mattered in relation to ethical decision-making. For example, journalists in top management positions were more likely to agree that it is appropriate to accept a free product or service: 54% of journalists working in top management found doing so to be justified on occasion, compared with 43% in non-managerial roles and 33% in middle management positions (see Figure 10.6). That said, most of the ethically questionable practices were less likely to be justified by journalists in management positions. Claiming to be somebody else, using hidden recording devices, and publishing confidential documents were all seen as less justifiable by news organisations’ top managers than by other workers.

Figure 10.6

10.4 Conclusions

Our findings about the ethics of UK journalists, a continuing area of industry debate and public criticism, indicate growing ambivalence about industry codes and greater sensitivities to how people who are not in the public eye should be treated. The 2023 survey also revealed starker differences in ethical perspectives between male and female journalists than between freelance practitioners and those on staff.

In the 2015 survey, conducted while the aftershocks of the Leveson Inquiry were still reverberating, journalists were more likely to favour the safe harbour of professional codes of ethics to guide their behaviour. By 2023, more respondents felt that full faith in industry-wide guidelines was misplaced, but there was also uncertainty about how best to steer an ethical course without them. They were more willing to acknowledge a need to consider the circumstances surrounding an ethical decision yet unwilling to fully endorse situational ethics – and less willing still to trust their own personal judgement. The waves of media change since the mid-2010s seem to have left UK journalists without a collective ethical anchor.

Another key finding from the 2023 survey was the disparity between how male and female journalists respond to the ethical choices they face. Those identifying as women were more likely to support professional codes and less likely to rely on personal judgement in making ethical decisions; they also were somewhat less accepting than those identifying as men of such controversial ethical practices as publishing personal materials of ordinary people, publishing confidential business or government information, or paying for information. Although the differences were not large, these findings suggest male and female journalists in the UK may make different ethical choices – a divergence that may be especially important given the greater numbers of men in managerial positions and the greater numbers of women working as freelancers, who hold less power in the newsroom hierarchy.

References

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Next chapter:
11. Surveying a representative sample of UK journalists: Methodology