Conference paper
Journalists – Guardians of their Own Professional Postulates
Jagoda Vukušić
; potpredsjednica Hrvatskog novinarskog društva
Abstract
The manner in which Croatian journalism has coped with the problems of the past ten
years gives us sufficient ground for optimism about our future. At the time when some
of the media were fighting for bare survival, and when the political circumstances
were unkind to free journalism, the Journalists’ Association found enough strength to
concern itself with professional journalistic standards. The paper gives one example to
illustrate the important work of the Association’s Court of Honour. It concerns the
story of the catholic confirmation of a girl conceived during a gang rape session in a
Serbian prison camp during the war. The Court of Honour follows the principle according
to which journalists should be not only guardians of democracy, but rather, in
the first place, guardians of their own professional and ethical postulates. One of the
postulates is that the pursuit of sensationalism at any cost ultimately never pays. This
is proved by the fact that the circulation of the media free from aggression and hatred
and hasty (unchecked) “information” is growing. Statistics show that our public is
over-saturated with journalism geared solely towards profit. We are now in a period
which is favourably inclined to higher journalistic professional standards. An example
of this is the first publisher’s code of conduct in the Europa Press Holding. This code
is modelled on the codes adopted by publishers, professional organizations and journalistic
trade unions in Germany.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
26305
URI
Publication date:
12.12.2000.
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