EJN Annual report 2018/19:

Ethics and the Fight for the Future of Journalism

Over the last year, the EJN reached far more than the participants through our core activities than ever before.

We carried out 166 programme-related actions (50 more than the same period last year) where the EJN had direct contact with our target groups – journalists and media executives; media academics and students of journalism; policymakers and civil society groups totalling over 7,100 individuals.

Summary of EJN Activities 2018-2019

The major EJN achievements during the past year include:

1. Establishing with Turkish media partners the ground-breaking Coalition for Ethical Journalism in Turkey, proving that even in hostile conditions ethical journalism is a source of solidarity for news media;
2. Supporting and preparing policy on media ethics as a bulwark for democracy through the Declaration for Information and Democracy launched at the Paris Peace Forum (November 2018) and endorsed by a number of governments;
3. Preparing a blueprint for future journalistic work through a course on Ethics and Data Journalism that will bring artificial intelligence and the social intelligence of journalists together in a new values-based framework for media work;
4. Helping to frame the Council of Europe’s declaration of financial journalism (February 2019) and a recommendation on creating an environment for quality journalism that will be published later this year;
5. Working with media across the Western Balkans to identify trustworthy and ethical media leading, in March, 2019, to the Launch of the Balkan Network of Trusted Media, supported by more than 40 leading news media;
6. Continuing to lead the media campaign against hate speech with support for published glossaries on hate speech for journalists in Cyprus, Turkey, Jordan and Palestine;
7. In the UK submitting evidence to the high-profile, government-commissioned Cairncross Review, which proposes a radical rethinking of how to fund journalism – particularly at a local level – and points the way to a sustainable future for journalism;
8. Working with Chinese media, journalists and media academics to develop practical tools to raise awareness of ethics and self-regulation;
9. Developing a course on Copyright and Author’s rights for African journalists;
10. Successfully launching the EJN’s Ethical Media Audits – a tool to improve transparency and governance in the ownership and administration of media – with an independent news leader in Jordan;
11. Opening the first phase of a two-year project to promote independent journalism in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia in partnership with the Evens Foundation.

Ongoing Programmes

1. The strengthening of our programme with UNESCO and the European Federation of Journalists to support independent media in the Western Balkans targeting self-regulation and good governance. This year activities were focused on Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey;
2. The completion of the labour migration fellowship scheme for journalists in Jordan, Lebanon and Gulf states with the International Labour Organization (ILO);
3. The EJN hate speech test is now available in over 25 languages, with new glossaries in development in Jordan and Palestine; this year the campaign reached the Caribbean for the first time;
4. Published two new versions of the EJN Annual Magazine on ethics in the news Trust in Ethical Journalism: The Key to Media Futures (2018) and Saving the News: Ethics and the Fight for the Future of Journalism (2019);
5. The completion of the EJN’s EU-funded project in Montenegro on ethical standards in journalism and media literacy;
6. The world’s first searchable database of media codes, press councils and standards, to which new codes are added on a continuing basis. (AccountableJournalism.org)

Read our latest magazine: Saving the News: Ethics and the fight for the future of journalism

The 5 Core Principles of Ethical Journalism

Watch more videos about ethical journalism.

The Ethical Journalism Network aims to strengthen the craft of journalism and to promote for the public benefit high ethical standards in journalism, based on principles of truth and accuracy, independence, fairness and impartiality, humanity and accountability by the provision of education and training of journalists and the publication of useful research.

The EJN’s research and training materials focus on; accountable journalism and self-regulation; corruption and self-censorship; ethics and sources; hate speech; media literacy; and media and migration.

The Accountable Journalism website is a searchable database of the world’s regulatory bodies, Press Councils and journalism Codes of Ethics. Run by the EJN and The Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, the website also brings together the best resources on media ethics and ethical journalism.