Abstract

This chapter investigates how global values are present in the ethical codes of journalism. The premise is that ethical codes portray the self-understanding of the profession, thus defining ideals and preferable practices for journalists. Existing research has shown that journalists’ codes have largely reflected internal obligations where beneficiaries of the profession are those closest. As journalism is an important factor in shaping the global public sphere, this study analyzed some 90 ethical codes of journalism to reveal whether issues of global nature, such as universalism, human rights, peace, etc., appear in current codes. The findings indicate that the global dimension is still quite rare in the codes but not totally nonexistent. This situation suggests that practitioners of journalism have not taken external obligations as part of their professional identity, at least on the level of ethical codes.