Bioethics in Croatian Daily Newspapers

Abstract

Multiple scientific papers deal with bioethics and the promotion thereof, so too this article puts forth some perspectives, particularly that of the deontological nature of journalism, in order to enable a systematic and analytical evaluation of the professional merit of texts published in Croatia’s most–read daily newspapers. We encounter topics in the press on a daily basis which are typically bioethical, but which are recognized as such only by the alert reader, the reason being that bioethics is a young academic interdisciplinary field, the theory of which must be appreciated in order that the topics it covers may be approached from this angle and presented as being such, namely bioethical. An examination of Večernji list, Jutarnji list, Novi list and 24 Sata through a the period of the first six months of 2014 has indicated that in Croatian journalistic circles bioethics is still unrecognized as an academic field which merits study, as opposed to sports, economics or politics all of which have their particular reporters whom we may rightly consider to be experts in these areas. Perhaps the time is coming for bioethical journalism to be brought to life in Croatia, that it may contribute in a constructive way to the development of contemporary Croatian society, in accordance with all the deontological principles of professional journalism, which is to be credited for the global rise of bioethics to academic levels toward the end of the previous century. This paper presents results qualitatively, that is, it provides qualitative analyses of all texts considered and which have been classified as texts containing bioethical content and which were published between January 1 and July 1, 2014.