Violations of journalistic ethics in television programs as a subject of the modern Russian television criticism

Abstract

The article reveals and studies the regularity and quality of coverage by television critics in newspapers of the journalistic professional ethic violations in television programs of five most popular television channels (“Channel One”, “Russia 1”, NTV, STS and TNT). Using the content method and comparative analysis, the authors of the article found that out of 1583 published in three years the topic of journalists’ ethical violation was covered only in 228 articles (14.4% of the total number of articles). Of the ten authors who regularly analyzed the content of television channels in the Russian press, only four critics did not remain indifferent and tried to draw public attention to violations of ethics on the part of television journalists. I. Petrovskaya, the reviewer from Novaya Gazeta, covered this issue more often than other critics. The most common ethical violation revealed by critics was the discussion in talk shows of not always proven mysteries from personal life of media people on the occasion of their passing. However, there were no special public discussions about the cases and reasons for ethical violations between critics and authors of TV projects, as well as critics and the audience. The article concludes that at present, apart from a public discussion of such cases, television critics have no opportunity to influence on the situation and change it. The authors of the article also concluded that there is a need for further constant and objective reflection of the quality of journalistic work at various levels, especially the practice of regional television journalism. The results of the study supplement the conclusions through the examples from the current practice of the Russian television criticism to the results in the articles and scientific literature of S.K. Shayhitdinova (2007), A. Kaun (2014), P.B. Orlik (2014), J.R. Linder, K.A. Lyle (2011).