Center for International Media Ethics
Encyclopedia
The Center for International Media Ethics (CIME) is a non-profit organization
that provides ethics
training to journalist
s worldwide and advocates for the importance of training & discussion on ethics among media professionals.
for a week-long seminar. After this week CIME emerged as a formal international framework to help journalists take on a proactive role in shaping their societies.
CIME encourages each journalist to take on a proactive role in defining ethical practices through the choices and decisions made at work on a daily basis. They urge journalists to work together to make their own judgments and identify their own strategies. The driving emphasis is that journalists together have the power to formulate and enforce a tacit code of ethics
as a status quo of their profession.
CIME has already hosted its Forum three years in a row, to provide panel discussion sessions for a group of selected journalists on the topic of ethics. This provides a framework for media professionals to share strategies on local ethical dilemma
s that come up in their work. They host the CIME Forum in low-income countries where journalists cannot normally afford ethics training, with the goal of improving the overall journalism ethics standards
in each given country.
on the role of ethics in media, publishes a monthly newsletter
focused on this discussion, and provides ethical training for low income journalists.
CIME Forum
The CIME Forum is an annual event that brings together media professionals for training, panels and discussion in ethical practices. The Forum is held each year in a different country. The first CIME Forum took place in Cotonou
, Benin (West Africa) in February 2009. The second Forum then took place in Oaxaca
, Mexico in 2010. The third CIME Forum took place in Budapest
, Hungary as a location to gather journalists from the surrounding countries in the heart of Eastern Europe.
International Media Ethics Day
The Center for International Media Ethics’ inaugural International Media Ethics Day (IMED) was celebrated on Friday, Sept. 23, 2011. More than 300 participants in 11 countries from four continents participated in the day’s events, with many others discussing media ethics issues online.
Location of workshops:
Research
Earlier in 2011 CIME launched a web-based survey that explored how journalism and media ethics works in various parts of the world, as told from the perspective of media professionals themselves. That questionnaire aimed at establishing a general concept of how media professionals view their position in the industry and their country’s ethical standards of media.
The study revealed various interesting opinions, one of them being that most of the respondents have disclosed that they have faced ethical dilemmas at work and have behaved unethically. This however was blamed on internal or external pressure from their editors, employers, concerned stakeholders and oftentimes the government.
Emphasizing the point in this study was that one of the sources of this unethical behavior is the lack of a commonly accepted and widely used code of journalism ethics in the countries or regions of the respondents. Its been noted that it is also a common deficiency that the employers of journalists do not have an ethics code or the journalists are simply not aware of it. This according to CIME results in a lack of knowledge about ethical rules and creates ignorance among media professionals about better practices that could be followed.
The Center for International Media Ethics recently launched a new web-based survey to find out what the general public thinks about today’s media. This is in correlation with the recent wave of phone hacking scandal and allows to discover people's trust towards media.
CIME Ethicontest
The first-ever CIME Ethicontest launched in September 2010, incorporates new journalists and voices into a global network of media professionals. Journalists, writers, researchers, media students and others interested in media ethics are invited to share their viewpoints. This annual writing competition is being judged by the acclaimed journalist and writer Geoffrey Nyarota
in association with CIME.
CIME Ambassador Program
The Center for International Media Ethics (CIME) launched the CIME Ambassador Program. The Ambassador Program serves as an outreach program for CIME, assisting in the international promotion of media ethics. In addition to providing journalists from all over the world with an opportunity to acquire training with CIME, this program offers chosen representatives the chance to be CIME representatives in their respective regions.
Conferences and seminars
CIME actively participates in numerous international journalism conferences, advocating the importance of training and discussion on ethics among media professionals. These have included events sponsored by the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum (2008, 2009; presentation), TEDxWestminster (2010; presentation), SEEMO Investigative Journalism Days (2010 and 2011; presentation), the European Journalism Centre
(2009, 2010; presentation), the International Press Institute
(2009; participation) and the Council of the EU (2011; participation) among others.
CIME frequently engages with university students and programs, giving lectures and participating in panel discussions on issues related to media ethics. These include past seminars and presentations at the University of Oxford
(participation), the London School of Economics
(presentation), Columbia University
(participation), Yale University
(participation), the University of Sheffield (presentation), the College of Europe
(presentation), and the University of Manouba (presentation).
According to Ethics for Media and the Center for International Media Ethics, "J-ethinomics" offers a solution. A combination of journalism, ethics and economics, J-ethinomics is founded on the idea that ethical reporting increases the demand for news.
CIME provides ethical training courses through its educational branch, EthicsForMedia but with a focus on the market value
of ethical practises. It offers courses in journalism ethics with a focus in J-Ethinomics, combining Journalism, Ethics and Economics.
J-Ethinomics is a term coined by the founder of the Center for International Media Ethics. It uses ethics to build trust in the news, sustaining demand for the media industry.
More generally, J-Ethinomics also highlights how the work of journalists impacts political and socio-economic development processes.
Basic principle: The public perception of news as “ethical” affects a media company's economic viability. People will be more inclined to pay for your news if they consider it trustworthy.
CIME welcomes Afghan journalists from Kandahar to its online media ethics training in August and September. The Afghan-Canadian Community Center provides its facilities equipped with computers and internet connection to local journalists in order to be able to participate in the J-Ethinomics course.
and the need to further corroborate on this matter is necessary. The organisation has not conducted enough quantitative research on the topic to prove its idea but recently they started to fill this gap by undertaking survey studies on ethical journalism.
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
that provides ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
training to journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s worldwide and advocates for the importance of training & discussion on ethics among media professionals.
History and mission
CIME began in July 2007, after thirty-two young journalists and professionals from five continents gathered in PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
for a week-long seminar. After this week CIME emerged as a formal international framework to help journalists take on a proactive role in shaping their societies.
CIME encourages each journalist to take on a proactive role in defining ethical practices through the choices and decisions made at work on a daily basis. They urge journalists to work together to make their own judgments and identify their own strategies. The driving emphasis is that journalists together have the power to formulate and enforce a tacit code of ethics
Code of ethics in media
The code of ethics in media was created by a suggestion from the 1947 Hutchins Commission. They suggested that newspapers, broadcasters and journalists had started to become more responsible for journalism and thought they should be held accountable....
as a status quo of their profession.
CIME has already hosted its Forum three years in a row, to provide panel discussion sessions for a group of selected journalists on the topic of ethics. This provides a framework for media professionals to share strategies on local ethical dilemma
Ethical dilemma
An Ethical dilemma is a complex situation that will often involve an apparent mental conflict between moral imperatives, in which to obey one would result in transgressing another....
s that come up in their work. They host the CIME Forum in low-income countries where journalists cannot normally afford ethics training, with the goal of improving the overall journalism ethics standards
Journalism ethics and standards
Journalism ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by journalists. Historically and currently, this subset of media ethics is widely known to journalists as their professional "code of ethics" or the "canons of journalism"...
in each given country.
Work
The Center for International Media Ethics has held international conferencesMeeting
In a meeting, two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal setting.- Definitions :An act or process of coming together as an assembly for a common purpose....
on the role of ethics in media, publishes a monthly newsletter
Newsletter
A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. Newspapers and leaflets are types of newsletters. Additionally, newsletters delivered electronically via email have gained rapid acceptance for the same reasons email in...
focused on this discussion, and provides ethical training for low income journalists.
CIME Forum
The CIME Forum is an annual event that brings together media professionals for training, panels and discussion in ethical practices. The Forum is held each year in a different country. The first CIME Forum took place in Cotonou
Cotonou
-Demographics:*1979: 320,348 *1992: 536,827 *2002: 665,100 *2005: 690,584 The main languages spoken in Cotonou include the Fon language, Aja language, Yoruba language and French.-Transport:...
, Benin (West Africa) in February 2009. The second Forum then took place in Oaxaca
Oaxaca
Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...
, Mexico in 2010. The third CIME Forum took place in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary as a location to gather journalists from the surrounding countries in the heart of Eastern Europe.
International Media Ethics Day
The Center for International Media Ethics’ inaugural International Media Ethics Day (IMED) was celebrated on Friday, Sept. 23, 2011. More than 300 participants in 11 countries from four continents participated in the day’s events, with many others discussing media ethics issues online.
Location of workshops:
- Albania organised by the Department of Journalism of the Albanian University in Tirana.
- Cambodia organised by the Cambodian Journalists' Council for Ethics along with the Cambodia Communication Institute. Among the speakers the Minister of Information.
- Ethiopia organised by the Ethiopian Journalists Anti-Corruption Network and Transparency Ethiopia.
- Ghana organised by the Ghana Media Advocacy Programme in partnership with Ethics Africa, Ghana Journalist Association, Partnership For The Future and UNICEF.
- Hungary organised by the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (Nemzeti Média- és Hírközlési Hatóság).
- Nigeria organised by Gbenga Adeniji , CIME Ambassador to Nigeria.
- Pakistan organised by Mishal Pvt. Pakistan and Puruesh Chaudhary, CIME Ambassador to Pakistan.
- Peru organised by Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas.
- Russia organised by YoJo.ru Young Journalists in Moscow's Central House of Journalists.
- South Sudan organised by Peter Bongiri CIME Ambassador to South Sudan.
- Zimbabwe organised by MISA Zimbabwe and the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe. Journalist and writer, Geoffrey NyarotaGeoffrey NyarotaGeoffrey Nyarota is an award-winning Zimbabwean journalist and author. He is the managing editor of , an online newspaper. His first book, Against the Grain, Memoirs of a Zimbabwean Newsman, was published by Zebra Press of South Africa in 2006....
represented CIME at the event.
Research
Earlier in 2011 CIME launched a web-based survey that explored how journalism and media ethics works in various parts of the world, as told from the perspective of media professionals themselves. That questionnaire aimed at establishing a general concept of how media professionals view their position in the industry and their country’s ethical standards of media.
The study revealed various interesting opinions, one of them being that most of the respondents have disclosed that they have faced ethical dilemmas at work and have behaved unethically. This however was blamed on internal or external pressure from their editors, employers, concerned stakeholders and oftentimes the government.
Emphasizing the point in this study was that one of the sources of this unethical behavior is the lack of a commonly accepted and widely used code of journalism ethics in the countries or regions of the respondents. Its been noted that it is also a common deficiency that the employers of journalists do not have an ethics code or the journalists are simply not aware of it. This according to CIME results in a lack of knowledge about ethical rules and creates ignorance among media professionals about better practices that could be followed.
The Center for International Media Ethics recently launched a new web-based survey to find out what the general public thinks about today’s media. This is in correlation with the recent wave of phone hacking scandal and allows to discover people's trust towards media.
CIME Ethicontest
The first-ever CIME Ethicontest launched in September 2010, incorporates new journalists and voices into a global network of media professionals. Journalists, writers, researchers, media students and others interested in media ethics are invited to share their viewpoints. This annual writing competition is being judged by the acclaimed journalist and writer Geoffrey Nyarota
Geoffrey Nyarota
Geoffrey Nyarota is an award-winning Zimbabwean journalist and author. He is the managing editor of , an online newspaper. His first book, Against the Grain, Memoirs of a Zimbabwean Newsman, was published by Zebra Press of South Africa in 2006....
in association with CIME.
CIME Ambassador Program
The Center for International Media Ethics (CIME) launched the CIME Ambassador Program. The Ambassador Program serves as an outreach program for CIME, assisting in the international promotion of media ethics. In addition to providing journalists from all over the world with an opportunity to acquire training with CIME, this program offers chosen representatives the chance to be CIME representatives in their respective regions.
Conferences and seminars
CIME actively participates in numerous international journalism conferences, advocating the importance of training and discussion on ethics among media professionals. These have included events sponsored by the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum (2008, 2009; presentation), TEDxWestminster (2010; presentation), SEEMO Investigative Journalism Days (2010 and 2011; presentation), the European Journalism Centre
European Journalism Centre
The European Journalism Centre is an independent, non-profit institute based in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Its director is Wilfried Ruetten , who was previously the head of digital television at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg, Austria....
(2009, 2010; presentation), the International Press Institute
International Press Institute
International Press Institute is a global organisation dedicated to the promotion and protection of press freedom and the improvement of journalism practices. Founded in October 1950, the IPI has members in over 120 countries....
(2009; participation) and the Council of the EU (2011; participation) among others.
CIME frequently engages with university students and programs, giving lectures and participating in panel discussions on issues related to media ethics. These include past seminars and presentations at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
(participation), the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
(presentation), Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
(participation), Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
(participation), the University of Sheffield (presentation), the College of Europe
College of Europe
The College of Europe is an independent university institute of postgraduate European studies with the main campus in Bruges, Belgium...
(presentation), and the University of Manouba (presentation).
J-Ethinomics
Journalism is adapting to economic woes and changing structurally to suit digital formats and new technology. Maintaining high ethical standards during the transition is a major challenge.According to Ethics for Media and the Center for International Media Ethics, "J-ethinomics" offers a solution. A combination of journalism, ethics and economics, J-ethinomics is founded on the idea that ethical reporting increases the demand for news.
CIME provides ethical training courses through its educational branch, EthicsForMedia but with a focus on the market value
Market value
Market value is the price at which an asset would trade in a competitive auction setting. Market value is often used interchangeably with open market value, fair value or fair market value, although these terms have distinct definitions in different standards, and may differ in some...
of ethical practises. It offers courses in journalism ethics with a focus in J-Ethinomics, combining Journalism, Ethics and Economics.
J-Ethinomics is a term coined by the founder of the Center for International Media Ethics. It uses ethics to build trust in the news, sustaining demand for the media industry.
More generally, J-Ethinomics also highlights how the work of journalists impacts political and socio-economic development processes.
Basic principle: The public perception of news as “ethical” affects a media company's economic viability. People will be more inclined to pay for your news if they consider it trustworthy.
Partnerships
The Center for International Media Ethics, in an ongoing effort to act globally, has started partnerships with organizations such as Thomson Reuters TrustMedia Foundation, Ethiopian Journalists Anti-Corruption Network and established networks in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan to help strengthen media ethics in the country by promoting respect for truth, accuracy and privacy.CIME welcomes Afghan journalists from Kandahar to its online media ethics training in August and September. The Afghan-Canadian Community Center provides its facilities equipped with computers and internet connection to local journalists in order to be able to participate in the J-Ethinomics course.
Criticism
The belief that ethical reporting builds trust in the media and thereby generates return for media companies, has not been fully explored by quantitative researchQuantitative research
In the social sciences, quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to...
and the need to further corroborate on this matter is necessary. The organisation has not conducted enough quantitative research on the topic to prove its idea but recently they started to fill this gap by undertaking survey studies on ethical journalism.
External links
- http://www.ethicsformedia.org/
- http://ijnet.org/blog/5-ways-ethics-journalism-can-boost-readership
- http://www.trust.org/trustmedia/news/centre-for-international-media-ethics-launches-new-online-training-course-j-ethinomics/
- http://www.cimethics.org/en/docs/CIME_Media_Ethics_Survey_2011_Report.pdf
- http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2011/08/interview-with-melisande-middleton-co-founder-center-for-international-media-ethics
- http://coveringthecrisis.eu/speakers.php#middleton
- http://www.tfas.org/Page.aspx?pid=1645