Unethical Newsroom Behavior: Paradoxes and a Perfect Storm

Abstract

Unethical behavior in newsrooms has come to public attention, and despite the glare of publicity, it persists. This research examines the question of why newsrooms provide a context conducive to persistent unethical workplace behaviors. We conducted 25 in-depth interviews with reporters, editors, anchors, producers, and news executives. Sexual harassment has been in the public eye, but our informants also described other unethical workplace behaviors such as bullying, discrimination, and incivility. Behavioral ethics emerged as a theoretical lens to help interpret our data. Five explanatory themes arose: 1) conceiving of work solely as creating journalistic content; 2) toxic rituals, rites of passage, and norms; 3) high power differentials and acquiescent behavior; 4) ineffective organizational mechanisms; and 5) a disruptive industry context. Networks of complicity enabled the bad behavior, and together with the themes, created a perfect storm that permitted unethical behavior to persist. Two paradoxes resulted: 1) the ethics paradox in which journalists had high ethical sensitivity in reporting but were blind to unethical behavior within newsrooms and 2) the power paradox in which journalists experienced role conflict caused by the need for initiative, courage, independence, and resistance to intimidation in reporting versus the dependence, obedience, and acquiescence required within newsrooms.