Journalistic ethics officially died today, September 1, 2025, thanks to @IFJGlobal ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, September 01, 2025

Journalistic ethics officially died today, September 1, 2025, thanks to @IFJGlobal

From the International Federation of Journalists:

In an unprecedented global action, almost 200 media outlets from 50 countries will simultaneously disrupt their front pages, homepages, and broadcasts to demand an end to the killing of journalists in Gaza and to call for international press access to the enclave.

For the first time in modern history, newsrooms across every continent will coordinate a large-scale editorial protest. The action - coordinated by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the global campaigning movement Avaaz and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) - will take place on Monday, September 1. Print newspapers will run blacked-out front pages carrying a stark message. Broadcasters and radio stations will pause programming with a joint statement. Online outlets will black out their homepages or banners in solidarity. Editors, reporters and other journalists are also taking part too.

We are seeing newspapers putting this protest advertisement as a front page story with the identical graphic.

This is profoundly unethical.

The front page of a newspaper is assumed to be where the top news stories are. In rare circumstances, a newspaper can put an op-ed as its top story. But this is not an op-ed - it is coordinated activism, using the newspapers as a medium.

Any other activists would have to purchase advertising space in newspapers to get such a message across. Here, journalists are taking advantage of their own medium to be used for something that goes against all journalistic ethics - taking up room normally used for legitimate news or editorial opinion with a coordinated activist campaign.

If they were ethical, they would purchase full page ads like any other group. Using precious news space for an activist campaign is perverting the very medium they work for.

By its nature, editorials are the opinion of the news source itself. People want to read which candidates their local papers endorse, for example. But in this case, the opinions are coming from a central activist framework. A newspaper that signs on has no independence in this matter.

This is problematic, because the message says that Israel is targeting journalists as journalists, which is a lie.

But the worst part is that this activist push it being promoted by the IFJ, which supposedly enforces journalistic ethics. This coordinated campaign goes against the ethics of the organization that created the standard on ethics.

The campaign violates a number of sections in the IFJ Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists, like avoiding distortion of facts and unfounded accusations. But the most egregious part being violated on is Article 13:

[The journalist] will avoid any confusion between his activity and that of advertising or propaganda.

This campaign meant to deliberately do exactly what their ethics prohibits. No matter how sympathetic one may be towards journalists concerned over the safety of their colleagues, it does not justify changing a news site into a megaphone for propaganda. Journalism must not favor journalists.

We know that in recent decades the journalism profession has been blurring the lines between news, opinion and activism. But journalists always at least maintained the pretense of holding up ethical standards. When the IFJ itself promotes activism on the news pages, and hundreds of media outlets sign up for it, that means that even the pretext of journalistic ethics has been shredded.

I once created a reference architecture for what journalistic ethics rules should look like. It goes way beyond any existing standards, and this campaign would violate it in a number of ways. Importantly, no self respecting journalist can argue that my code is wrong - it respects journalism even more than the IFJ ethics charter does by demanding excellence and clear boundaries.

This is not about Israel or bias or journalists blurring lines. This is about the collapse of the entire journalism industry, promoted by the very people who should be defending it the most. And that should frighten you.