There is agreement at high and low levels as to the importance of the codes to the practices of journalism, but also agreement that further standards need to be applied: “90% of our editorial staff are MEAA members and we take the code very seriously, alongside our own internal rules and policies and procedures”, explained an online editor. “It is an important code. But journalists must also apply their own ethical standards”, added a senior columnist.
As explained by Josephi (2011) in the previous Australian MDM report, the country has a journalistic code of ethics which was first adopted in 1944 (Lloyd, 1985: 228) and has been revised since. It was drafted by the Australian Journalists’ Union, and for many years, it was Australia’s only journalistic code of ethics. Concise in nature and upheld by the union to which a high proportion of Australian journalists used to belong, it is well known to journalists and in newsrooms. Interviewees both in the previous edition and now confirm that the Australian journalists’ code of ethics continue to have a deep professional penetration.
Over the past two decades, more and more media companies added their own in-house codes of conduct to the Australian Journalists’ Union – now Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance – code, but in recent years, the trend is to defer to the Australian Press Council’s Statement of General Principles, Standards and Advisory Notes for providing ethical guidance for journalists and editors in traditional and new media contexts, specifically in relation to the adjudication of complaints (Australian Press Council, 2020).
