In a family or society or any professional field, there is fundamental rules and regulations accepted by all the members. These rules and regulations are the things to set for do and don’t. When time passed by, those rule and regulations are upgraded and become ethic.
There is no such restriction like law in ethic. Following the ethic will make you or society or professional field’s civilization to be developed.
We can say the heart of journalism is ethic. Journalist’s work are based on ethic. They are fulfilling the right to information of the public. So, they have to approach various issues from various aspects to collect the information for their reporting.
But here is the question. There are information from journalist and non-journalist. Whom should people trust and why?
If I’m not a journalist, I would trust more to journalists because they are giving information based on facts and no bias. To be trust by people, journalist should follow the ethics. Journalist with ethic will have no power but charisma. To be a charismatic journalist, you have to follow the ethic. Thus why ethic is the heart of journalism.
Myanmar was under military ruling from 1962 to 2010. In 2008, the ruling Junta announced the new constitution as a part of roadmap to democracy and an election was held in 2010. According to the 2008 constitution, the term durations of the legislature, the President, and the Cabinet are five years. So, it has been two terms. But the cabinet from 2010 to 2015 were same people from military governments.
When I review the news reporting in that era, I see huge bias by news organizations. I feel like it’s the violation of ethic. I was one of them.
We, Myanmar journalists were stereotyped the cabinet as dictators who only change the attire from military uniform to more comfortable civilian attire. As the result, we, journalists were biased for opposition democratic party.
I would like to share my reporting experience in 2015 general election as an example. (The reason I don’t give an example from 2010 general election is there was censorship on press). In 2015 general election, ruling party is military junta. Opposition party is the most influential parties in Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement.
When it closer to election, over 90% of news coverage are only about opposition democratic party. In my video reporting, most of my news packages are about opposition democratic party. Finally, they won a landslide victory in Myanmar after general elections and could formed a government. After this, I review myself and started to doubt that I violated the ethic. This was lesson for me.
I was stereotyped the government which ruled the country from 2010 to 2015. I always saw them that they will oppress the people as they are same people from military junta. As a journalist, reporting with prejudgment is the violation of one of the SPJ code of ethics which is avoid stereotyping. Journalists should examine the ways their values and experiences may shape their reporting.
So, not to violate the mentioned SPJ code of ethic in the future, we need to do our reporting with no bias and need to approach from various perspectives.
— Kyaw Soe —
A journalist based in Myanmar.
Student of Diploma in Visual Journalism — The Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University
