Module 7
Advertising and Ethics
A. Advertising Timeline
Your roommates had the advantage. They know that U.S. advertisers and
marketers spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year trying to get your attention and
influence your decisions. They also know that you typically encounter an estimated 4,000
to 10,000 commercial messages a day (Marshall, 2015). There are a lot of ads and a lot of
advertisers. Almost everyone in the ad business complains about commercial clutter, yet,
in the words of Advertising Age writer Matthew Creamer, “Like a fly repeatedly
bouncing off a closed window, the ad industry is trying to fix the problem by doing more
of the same. That is, by creating more ads” (2007, p. 1). Often those ads are ambient
advertising, sometimes referred to as 360 marketing, and by whatever name, they are
showing up in some fairly nontraditional settings.
This is because advertisers know that “we, the public, are so good at avoiding or
ignoring traditional advertising. We are fickle fish, cynical creatures who have already
been hooked so many times that the simpler lures no longer work” (Wu, 2016b). So Sony
hires graffiti artists in major cities to spray-paint ads for its PlayStation Portable on walls
and buildings. Officials in Brooklawn, New Jersey, sell naming rights to school facilities
—the gym at the Alice Costello Elementary School is now the ShopRite of Brooklawn
Center. The National Park Service sells naming rights to our national parks, and
moviemakers pay pastors to mention their films in their sermons (Wu, 2016a). The rPlate
looks like a traditional automobile license plate when a vehicle is moving, but it becomes
a digital billboard when it is parked, its message targeted to its location.
By the 15th century, ads as we know them now were abundant in Europe. Siquis
— pinup want ads for all sorts of products and services—were common. Tradespeople
promoted themselves with shopbills—attractive, artful business cards. Taverners and
other merchants were hanging eye-catching signs above their businesses. In 1625 the first
newsbook containing ads, The Weekly News, was printed in England. From the
beginning, those who had products and services to offer used advertising.
The Industrial Revolution and the Civil War altered the social and cultural
landscape and brought about the expansion of advertising. By the 1840s the telegraph
made communication over long distances possible. Railroads linked cities and states.
Huge numbers of immigrants were welcomed to the United States to provide labor for the
expanding factories. Manufacturers wanted access to larger markets for their goods.
Advertising copywriter Volney B. Palmer recognized in 1841 that merchants needed to
reach consumers beyond their local newspaper readership. He contacted several
Philadelphia newspapers and agreed to broker the sale of space between them and
interested advertisers. Within four years Palmer had expanded his business to Boston, and
in 1849, he opened a branch in New York. The advertising agency had been invented.
In the years between the Civil War and World War I, advertising had rapidly
become more complex, more creative, and more expensive, and it was conducted on a
larger scale. Advertising agencies had to expand their operations to keep up with demand.
Where Palmer offered merely to broker the sale of newspaper space, F. Wayland Ayer
began his “full service” advertising agency in 1869, N. W. Ayer and Sons. He provided
clients with ad campaign planning, created and produced ads with his staff of artists and
writers, and placed them in the most appropriate media. Several big agencies still
operating today started at this time, including J. Walter Thompson, William Esty, and
Lord & Thomas.
During this period, three factors combined to motivate the advertising industry to
establish professional standards and to regulate itself. First was the reaction of the public
and the medical profession to the abuses of patent medicine advertisers. These charlatans
used fake claims and medical data in their ads to sell tonics that at best were useless and,
at worst, deadly. The second was the critical examination of most of the country’s
important institutions, led by the muckrakers (see the chapter on magazines). The third
factor was the establishment in 1914 of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which had
among its duties monitoring and regulating advertising. As a result, a number of leading
advertising agencies and publishers mounted a crusade against gross exaggeration, false
testimonials, and other misleading forms of advertising. The Audit Bureau of Circulations
was established to verify circulation claims. The Advertising Federation of America (now
the American Advertising Federation), the American Association of Advertising
Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers, and the Outdoor Advertising
Association all began operation at this time.
The first radio ad was broadcast on WEAF in 1922 (the cost was $50 for a 10-
minute spot). Radio was important to advertising in three major ways. First, although
many people both inside and outside government were opposed to commercial support
for the new medium, the general public had no great opposition to radio ads. In fact, in
the prosperous Roaring Twenties, many welcomed them; advertising seemed a natural
way to keep radio “free.” Second, advertising agencies virtually took over broadcasting,
producing the shows in which their commercials appeared. The ad business became show
business. The 1923 variety show The Eveready Hour, sponsored by a battery maker, was
the first regularly broadcast sponsored series. Ad agency Blackett-Sample-Hummert even
developed a new genre for its client Procter & Gamble—the soap opera. Third, money
now poured into the industry. That income was used to expand research and marketing on
a national scale, allowing advertisers access to sophisticated nationwide consumer and
market information for the first time. The wealth that the advertising industry accrued
from radio permitted it to survive during the Depression.
The Second World War, so important in the development of all the mass media,
had its impact on advertising as well. Production of consumer products came to a near
halt during the war (1941–1945), and traditional advertising was limited. The advertising
industry turned its collective skills toward the war effort, and what product advertising
that there was typically adopted a patriotic theme. In 1941 several national advertising
and media associations joined to develop the War Advertising Council. The council used
its expertise to promote numerous government programs. Its best-known campaign,
however, was on behalf of the sale of war bonds. The largest campaign to date for a
single item, the war bond program helped sell 800 million bonds, totaling $45 billion.
When the war ended, the group, now called the Advertising Council, directed its efforts
toward a host of public service campaigns on behalf of countless nonprofit organizations
(see the essay “Effecting Positive Social Change”). Most of us have read or heard, “This
message is brought to you by the Ad Council.”
There was no shortage of consumer products when the war ended. The nation’s
manufacturing capacity had been greatly expanded to meet the needs of war, but
afterwards, that manufacturing capability was turned toward the production of consumer
products for people who found themselves with more leisure and more money. People
were also having more children and, thanks to the GI Bill, were able to think realistically
about owning homes. They wanted products to enhance their leisure, please their
children, and fill their houses.
Advertising was well positioned to put products and people together, not only
because agencies had expanded during the war but also because of television. Radio’s
formats, stars, and network structure had moved wholesale to the new medium.
Television soon became the primary national advertising medium. Advertisers bought
$12 million in television time in 1949; two years later they spent $128 million. Television
commercials, by virtue of the fact that consumers could see and hear the product in
action, were different from the advertising of all other media. The ability to demonstrate
the product—to do the torture test for Timex watches, to smoothly shave sandpaper with
Rapid Shave—led to the unique selling proposition (USP). Once an advertiser discovered
a product’s USP, it could drive it home in repeated demonstration commercials.
Inasmuch as most brands in a given product category are essentially the same —that is,
they are parity products—advertisers were often forced to create a product’s USP. Candy
is candy, for example, but M&Ms are unique: They melt in your mouth, not in your hand.
The typical individual living in the United States will spend more than one year of
his or her life just watching television commercials. It is a rare moment when we are not
in the audience of some ad or commercial. This is one of the many reasons advertisers
have begun to place their messages in many venues beyond the traditional commercial
media, as we saw earlier, hoping to draw our attention. We confront so many ads every
day that we overlook them, and they become invisible. As a result, many people become
aware of advertising only when it somehow offends them.
The first defense is a given. Ours is a capitalistic society whose economy depends
on the exchange of goods and services. Complaints, then, have less to do with the
existence of advertising than with its conduct and content, and they are not new. At the
1941 founding meeting of the Advertising Council, J. Walter Thompson executive James
Webb Young argued that such a public service commitment would go far toward
improving the public’s attitude toward his industry, one “rooted very deep. It is a sort of
repugnance for the manifestations of advertising—or its banality, its bad taste, its
moronic appeals, and its clamor” (quoted in “Story of the Ad Council,” 2001). The
second defense assumes that advertising provides information. But much—critics would
say most—advertising is devoid of useful information about the product. Rarely does
consumer advertising tout the benefits of a product because marketers know well that
rather than products, people buy the lifestyles, experiences, and emotions associated with
those products. The third defense assumes that the only way media can exist is through
commercial support, but many nations around the world have built fine media systems
without heavy advertiser support (see the chapter on global media). To critics of
advertising, the fourth defense—that people work hard only to acquire more things and
that our standard of living is measured by the material things we have—draws an
unflattering picture of human nature.
Many critics fault advertising for its intrusiveness. Advertising is everywhere, and
it interferes with and alters our experience. Giant wall advertisements change the look of
cities. Ads beamed by laser light onto night skies destroy evening stargazing. School
learning aids provided by candy makers asking students to “count the Tootsie Rolls” alter
education. Constant commercials diminish the television-viewing experience, leading
83% of DVR users to skip most ads, with 60% of those viewers skipping every ad.
The average American child, aged 2 to 11, is exposed to 25,600 television
commercials, or 10,700 minutes of ads, a year, and more than 40% of this exposure is in
programming not primarily intended for kids (Rideout, 2014). Countries like Norway and
Sweden, on the other hand, completely ban television ads aimed at kids, as does the
Canadian province of Quebec. Ads and commercialism are increasingly invading schools
—90% of American high school students and 70% of American elementary school
students attend schools that allow on-campus food advertising, 90% of which is for soda,
sports drinks, and other beverages (Morrison, 2014). In 2016 the 35,000-member United
Teachers of Los Angeles, representing the nation’s second-largest school district, wrote a
formal letter to the McDonald’s Operators Association of Southern California demanding
that it cease its McTeacher’s Night, an in-school promotion at which teachers wear
McDonald’s uniforms and make and serve the fast food to students and their families at
full price.
In our culture we value beauty, kindness, prestige, family, love, and success. As
human beings we need food, shelter, and the maintenance of the species, in other words,
sex. Advertising succeeds by appealing to these values and needs. The basis for this
persuasive strategy is the AIDA approach—to persuade consumers, advertising must
attract attention, create interest, stimulate desire, and promote action. According to
industry critics, however, problems arise when important aspects of human existence are
reduced to the consumption of brand-name consumer products. Freedom is choosing
between a Big Gulp and a canned soda at 7-Eleven. Being a good mother is as simple as
buying a bottle of Downy Fabric Softener. Success is drinking Chivas Regal. Love is
giving your husband a shirt without ring-around-the-collar or your fiancée a diamond
worth two months’ salary.
B. The Extent and Characteristics of the Advertising Business
The proliferation of the different types of sales pitches described in the opening
vignette is the product of an avalanche of advertising. Advertisers are exploring new
ways to be seen and heard, to stand out, to be remembered, and to be effective. With so
many kinds of commercial messages, the definition of advertising must be very broad.
For our purposes, advertising is mediated messages paid for by and identified with a
business or institution seeking to increase the likelihood that those who consume those
messages will act or think as the advertiser wishes.
There are approximately 6,000 ad agencies operating in the United States,
employing roughly 500,000 people, and ad agency employment is at its highest level
since 2001 (“Staffing Up,” 2016). Fewer than 500 agencies annually earn more than $1
million, and while the giant agencies garner most of our attention, there is significant
growth among boutique agencies, smaller, more personalized, and task-specific ad
agencies (for example, dealing primarily with social-media marketing) or product-
specific agencies (for example, handling only pet supply accounts). Many agencies
produce the ads they develop, and virtually all buy time and space in various media for
their clients. Production is billed at an agreedupon price called a retainer; placement of
advertising in media is compensated through commissions, typically 15% of the cost of
the time or space. Commissions account for as much as 75% of the income of larger
agencies.
Companies do more than just sell products; companies also promote their names
and reputations. If a company name inspires confidence, selling its products is easier.
Some institutional or corporate advertising promotes only the organization’s image, such
as “FTD Florists support the U.S. Olympic Team.” But some advertising sells the image
at the same time it sells the product: “You can be sure if it’s Westinghouse.” Typically
found in trade and professional publications, messages aimed at retailers do not
necessarily push the product or brand but rather promote product issues of importance to
the retailer—volume, marketing support, profit potential, distribution plans, and
promotional opportunities.
A large part of the advertising we see every day focuses on products sold by
retailers like Sears and Macy’s. Ads are typically local, reaching consumers where they
live and shop. Typically placed by retailers, promotional advertising focuses not on a
product but on a promotion, a special event held by a retailer. “Midnight Madness Sale”
and “Back to School Sale” are two promotions that often benefit from heavy advertising,
particularly in newspapers and local television.
Advertising of products and services directed toward a particular industry is
usually found in industry trade publications. For example, Broadcasting & Cable, the
primary trade magazine for the television industry, runs ads from program syndicators
hoping to sell their shows to stations. It also runs ads from transmitter and camera
manufacturers. National consumer advertising constitutes the majority of what we see in
the media we routinely consume. It is usually product advertising, commissioned by the
manufacturer—McDonald’s, Honda, Cheerios, Sony, Nike— aimed at potential buyers.
Product or service advertising aimed at likely buyers rather than at all consumers is called
direct market advertising. These targeted consumers are reached through direct mail,
catalogs, and telemarketing. This advertising can be personalized—“Yes, BRUCE
FRIEDBERG, you can drive a Lexus for less than you think”—and customized.
Computer data from credit card and other purchases, zip codes, telephone numbers, and
organizational memberships are a few of the ways consumers are identified.
C. The Regulation of Advertising
The FTC is the primary federal agency for the regulation of advertising. The FCC
regulates the commercial practices of the broadcasting industry, and individual states can
police deceptive advertising through their own regulatory and criminal bureaucracies. In
the deregulation movement of 1980, oversight by the FTC changed from regulating
unfair and deceptive advertising to regulating and enforcing complaints against deceptive
advertising, typically from a brand’s competitor.
The FTC has several options for enforcement when it determines that a false-
claim complaint against an advertiser is justified. It can issue a cease-and-desist order
demanding that the practice be stopped. It can impose fines. It can order the creation and
distribution of corrective advertising—that is, a new set of ads must be produced by the
offender that corrects the original misleading effort. For example, in 2012, U.S. tobacco
companies were ordered to run corrective ads containing wording such as “Cigarettes
cause cancer, lung disease, heart attacks, and premature death.”
One of the greatest difficulties for the FTC is finding the line between false or
deceptive advertising and puffery—that little lie that makes advertising more entertaining
than it might otherwise be. “Whiter than white” and “stronger than dirt” are just two
examples of puffery. On the assumption that the public does not read commercials
literally—we know that the Jolly Green Giant does not exist—the courts and the FTC
allow a certain amount of exaggeration. Puffery may be allowed, but many in the ad
industry dislike its slippery slope; puffery, says Keller & Heckman’s Richard Leighton,
means “never having to say you’re sorry for untruths or exaggerated claims”
The FTC and courts, however, do recognize that an advertisement can be false in
a number of ways. An advertisement is false if it does any one of the following, Lies
outright, Does not tell the whole truth, Lies by implication, using words, design,
production device, sound, or a combination of these. Reebok claimed its EasyTone shoes
produced 11% greater strength and tone in hamstring muscles than did regular walking
shoes. The FTC said, “Prove it.” Reebok couldn’t. Ads for POM Wonderful said its
pomegranate juice is “backed by $25 million in medical research” and is “proven to fight
for cardiovascular, prostate, and erectile health.” “Not so,” said the FTC.
Miller Lite’s “new taste protector cap” does indeed better preserve the taste of the
beer. But ads touting this feature do not tell the whole truth because Miller Lite’s bottle
caps are exactly the same as all other bottled beers’ and have no taste-protecting
characteristics beyond those of ordinary cans and bottles. Television commercials for
children’s toys now end with the product shown in actual size against a neutral
background (a shot called an island). This is required because production techniques such
as low camera angles and close-ups can make these toys seem larger or better than they
actually are.
It might seem reasonable to judge the effectiveness of an ad campaign by a
subsequent increase in sales. But many factors other than advertising influence how well
a product fares, including changes in the economy, product quality, breadth of
distribution, and competitors’ pricing and promotion strategies. Department store
magnate John Wanamaker is said to have complained in the late 1880s, “I know that fifty
percent of my advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which fifty percent.” Today’s
advertisers feel much the same way, and as you might imagine, they find this a less-than-
comforting situation. Agencies, therefore, turn to research to provide greater certainty.
In the summer of 2005, the world’s largest advertiser, Procter & Gamble,
announced that it would cut $300 million from its television ad expenditures, a 15% drop
from its typical annual spending on that medium. Said Jim Stengel, head of global
marketing for the company, “I believe today’s marketing model is broken. We’re
applying antiquated thinking and work systems to a new world of possibilities” (in
Auletta, 2005, pp. 35–36). When the country’s second-largest advertiser, General Motors,
followed suit a year later, slashing its 2006 ad budget by $600 million to shift its
marketing resources toward “channels such as direct marketing, websites, online video,
event marketing, branded entertainment, and internet advertising,” Advertising Age’s
Jean Halliday called it “a drop so stunning it should convince even the staunchest
doubters that the age of mass-media marketing is going the way of the horse and buggy”
(2007, p. 1). These public rebukes of the traditional advertising model demonstrated what
most industry professionals already knew—their industry was in need of change in, and
some even said reinvention of, its economics, creativity, and relationship with consumers.
The production of advertising has inevitably been altered by computers.
Computer graphics, morphing (digitally combining and transforming images), and other
special effects are now common in national retail television advertising. And the same
technology used to change the ads behind the batter in a televised baseball game is now
employed to insert product placements into programs where no placement originally
existed—a character who was once eating an unbranded cookie can now munch an Oreo.
Consumers are increasingly dissatisfied with hypercommercialism in other media
and the lack of relevancy that much advertising has for them. They are becoming
resistant to and resentful of much of the marketing they encounter, as you saw earlier in
this chapter. As a result, many advertisers are now less interested in CPM, focusing
instead on return on investment (ROI). After all, who cares how many thousands you are
reaching if they reject your message? Industry professionals who look at Internet and
Web advertising and see that it is ideally suited for increased ROI have begun asking why
all media can’t offer some of that benefit. “As technology increasingly enables fine
targeting and interaction between marketer and consumer,” Bob Garfield argued, “the old
measurement and deployment standards are primitive almost to the point of absurdity”.
Virtually all advertisers understand that the Internet-fueled fragmentation and
democratization of media require a new type of appeal to consumers. If people are
increasingly rejecting traditional mass media and the commercial messages they carry,
the industry must become more creative in its messages and how it gets them to desired
consumers. We’ve already seen many examples—product placement in all media,
specially designed and targeted commercials delivered through cable or called up by
DVR, online advergames, and the examples of ambient advertising that opened this
chapter.
The Internet, as we’ve seen throughout this text, makes mass communication less
of a monologue and more of a conversation. Today’s consumers are no longer passive
media receivers, taking whatever the television networks and movie studios insist they
should. Instead, they are empowered media users, increasingly free to control and shape
the content they receive. In the relative youth of Internet advertising, Ogilvy & Mather’s
vice chair, Steve Hayden, predicted that “as all media becomes addressable, all media
becomes refusable.” He argued that because the consumer now has the power to accept or
reject content, an advertiser has to enter into a transaction with him or her, saying, “‘I’ll
give you this content in exchange for your attention,’ which has always been the model of
mass advertising. But now, I’ve got to make that deal on a person-to-person basis” (in
Kirsner, 2005). Indeed, 79% of adult American consumers say brands must actively
demonstrate “they understand and care about me” before they consider doing business
with them.
As media and national economies have globalized, advertising has adapted. U.S.
agencies are increasingly merging with, acquiring, or affiliating with agencies from other
parts of the world. Revisit Figure 2. You’ll see that 6 of the top 10 U.S. agencies are
owned by foreign companies. In addition to the globalization of media and economies, a
second force driving this trend is the demographic fact that today 80% of the world’s
population lives in developing countries, and nearly two-thirds of all the people in the
world live in Asia alone. The industry is already putting its clients in touch with these
consumers. Foreign ad spending first exceeded U.S. totals in 1980, and while major
media ad spending in America accounts for a third of the world’s total, ad spending in
developing nations is growing at a faster rate than it is in the developed world. In fact, the
Asia-Pacific region surpassed North America as the world’s biggest advertising market in
2015, and emerging markets such as the “BRIC” countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and
China) routinely post year-to-year rates of growth in advertising that exceed that of the
United States. Figure 5 shows the world’s 10 biggest global advertisers.
D. Chronology of Media Freedom, Regulatory Measures, and Ethical Milestones
The U.S. Constitution mentions only one industry by name as deserving special
protection —the press. Therefore, our examination of media regulation, self-regulation,
and ethics must begin with a discussion of this “First Freedom.” Democracy—
government by the people—requires a free press. The framers of the Bill of Rights
understood this because of their experience with the European monarchies from which
they and their forebears had fled. They based their guarantee of this privileged position to
the press on libertarianism, the philosophy of the press asserting that good and rational
people can tell right from wrong if presented with full and free access to information;
therefore, censorship is unnecessary. Libertarianism is based on the selfrighting principle,
originally stated in 1644 by English author and poet John Milton in his book
Areopagitica. His argument was simple: The free flow or trade of ideas, even bad or
uncomfortable ones, will inevitably produce the truth because a rational and good public
will correct, or right, any errors.
Abridgment is the curtailing of rights, and even absolutists accept the idea that
some curtailment or limits can be placed on the time, place, and manner of expression—
as long as the restrictions do not interfere with the substance of the expression. Few, for
example, would find it unreasonable to limit the use of a sound truck to broadcast
political messages at 4:00 a.m. But the Supreme Court did find unconstitutional an
ordinance that forbade all use of sound amplification except with the permission of the
chief of police in its 1948 decision in Saia v. New York. The permissibility of other
restrictions, however, is less clear-cut.
Can freedom of the press be limited if the likely result is damaging? The Supreme
Court answered this question in 1919 in Schenck v. United States. In this case involving
the distribution of a pamphlet urging illegal resistance to the military draft during World
War I, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that expression could be limited when “the
words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear
and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a
right to prevent.” Justice Holmes added, “Free speech would not protect a man in falsely
shouting fire in a theater and causing panic.” This decision is especially important
because it firmly established the legal philosophy that there is no absolute freedom of
expression; the level of protection is one of degree.
This less-than-absolutist approach is called the ad hoc balancing of interests. That
is, in individual First Amendment cases several factors should be weighed in determining
how much freedom the press is granted. In his dissent to the Court’s 1941 decision in
Bridges v. California, a case involving a Los Angeles Times editorial, Justice Felix
Frankfurter wrote that free speech and press is “not so absolute or irrational a conception
as to imply paralysis of the means for effective protection of all the freedoms secured by
the Bill of Rights…. In the cases before us, the claims on behalf of freedom of speech
and of the press encounter claims on behalf of liberties no less precious.”
One example of the clash of competing liberties is the conflict between free press
(First Amendment) and fair trial (Sixth Amendment). This debate typically takes two
forms: (1) Can pretrial publicity deny citizens judgment by 12 impartial peers, thereby
denying them a fair trial? (2) Should cameras be allowed in the courtroom, supporting the
public’s right to know, or do they so alter the workings of the court that a fair trial is
impossible? Courts have consistently decided in favor of fair trial in conflicts between the
First and Sixth Amendments, but it was not until 1961 that a conviction was overturned
because of pretrial publicity.
Libel, the false or malicious publication of material that damages a person’s
reputation, and slander, the oral or spoken defamation of a person’s character, are not
protected by the First Amendment. The distinction between libel and slander, however, is
sufficiently narrow that “published defamation, whether it is in a newspaper, on radio or
television, in the movies, or whatever, is regarded since the 1990s as libel. And libel rules
apply” (Pember, 1999, p. 134). Therefore, if a report (1) defames a person, (2) identifies
that person, and (3) is published or broadcast, it loses its First Amendment protection.
A report accused of being libelous or slanderous, however, is protected if it meets
any one of three tests. The first test is truth. Even if a report damages someone’s
reputation, if it is true, it is protected. The second test is privilege. Coverage of
legislative, court, or other public activities may contain information that is not true or that
is damaging to someone’s reputation. The press cannot be deterred from covering these
important news events for fear that a speaker’s or witness’s comments will open it to
claims of libel or slander. The third test is fair comment; that is, the press has the right to
express opinions or comment on public issues. For example, theater and film reviews,
however severe, are protected, as is commentary on other matters in the public eye.
There is much less confusion about another important aspect of press freedom,
prior restraint. This is the power of the government to prevent the publication or
broadcast of expression. U.S. law and tradition make the use of prior restraint relatively
rare, but there have been a number of important efforts by government to squelch content
before dissemination. In 1931 the Supreme Court ruled in Near v. Minnesota that
freedom from prior restraint was a general, not an absolute, principle. Two of the four
exceptions it listed were in times of war when national security was involved and when
the public order would be endangered by the incitement to violence and overthrow by
force of orderly government. These exceptions were to become the basis of two landmark
prior restraint decisions. The first, involving The New York Times, dealt with national
security in times of war; the second, focusing on protecting the public order, involved
publishing instructions for building an atomic bomb.
Obscenity and pornography are rarely issues for broadcasters. Their commercial
base and wide audience make the airing of such potentially troublesome programming
unwise. However, broadcasters frequently do confront the issue of indecency. According
to the FCC, indecent language or material is that which depicts sexual or excretory
activities in a way that is offensive to contemporary community standards. The FCC
recently modified, much to broadcasters’ dissatisfaction, its way of handling indecency
complaints, making it easier for listeners and viewers to challenge questionable content.
Stations must now prove they are innocent; in other words, a complaint has validity by
virtue of having been made. To broadcasters, this “guilty until proven innocent” approach
is an infringement of their First Amendment rights, as it requires them to keep tapes of all
their content in the event they are challenged, even in the absence of evidence that a
complaint has merit.
The difficulty of balancing the public interest and broadcasters’ freedom is at the
heart of the debate over deregulation and the relaxation of ownership and other rules for
radio and television. Changes in ownership rules have always been controversial, but
relaxation of the regulation of broadcasters’ public service obligations and other content
controls have provided just as much debate. The courts have consistently supported the
FCC’s right to evaluate broadcasters’ performance in serving the public interest,
convenience, and necessity. Naturally, that evaluation must include some judgment of the
content broadcasters air. Broadcasters long argued that such “judgment” amounted to
unconstitutional infringement of their First Amendment freedom. Many listeners and
viewers saw it as a reasonable and quite small price to pay for the use of their (the
public’s) airwaves.
The First Amendment protects expression. Copyright—identifying and granting
ownership of a given piece of expression—is designed to protect the creator’s financial
interest in that expression. Recognizing that the flow of art, science, and other expression
would be enhanced by authors’ financial interest in their creation, the framers of the
Constitution wrote Article I, Section 8 (8), granting authors exclusive rights to their
“writings and discoveries.” A long and consistent history of Supreme Court decisions has
ensured that this protection would be extended to the content of the mass media that have
emerged since that time.
The Internet has forced a significant rethinking of copyright, one that disturbs
many advocates of free expression. They fear that efforts to protect the intellectual
property rights of copyright holders are going too far. The expansion of copyright, argues
technology writer Dan Gillmor, gives “the owners of intellectual property vast new
authority, simultaneously shredding users’ rights”. Copyright exists, say critics of its
expansion, to encourage the flow of art, science, and expression, and it grants a financial
stake to creators, not to enrich those creators but to ensure that there is sufficient
incentive to keep the content flowing. “It’s always important to remember that copyright
is a restriction on free speech, and it’s a constitutionally granted restriction on free
speech,” argued copyright expert Siva Vaidhyanathan.
E. Social Responsibility Theory
As we saw at the beginning of this chapter, the First Amendment is based on the
libertarian philosophy that assumes a fully free press and a rational, good, and informed
public. But we have also seen in this chapter that the media are not necessarily fully free.
Government control is sometimes allowed. Corporate control is assumed and accepted.
During the 1930s and 1940s, serious doubts were also raised concerning the public’s
rationality and goodness. As World War II spread across Europe at the end of the 1930s,
libertarians were hard-pressed to explain how Nazi propaganda could succeed if people
could in fact tell right from wrong. As the United States was drawn closer to the
European conflict, calls for greater government control of press and speech at home were
justified by less-thanoptimistic views of the “average American’s” ability to handle
difficult information. As a result, libertarianism came under attack for being too
idealistic.
Social responsibility theory is a normative theory—that is, it explains how media
should ideally operate in a given system of social values—and it is the standard against
which the public should judge the performance of the U.S. media. Other social and
political systems adhere to different normative theories, and these will be detailed in the
chapter on global media. Social responsibility theory asserts that media must remain free
of government control, but in exchange media must serve the public. The core
assumptions of this theory are a cross between libertarian principles of freedom and
practical admissions of the need for some form of control on the media.
F. Media Industry Ethics
A number of formal and informal controls, both external and internal to the
industry, are aimed at ensuring that media professionals operate in an ethical manner
consistent with social responsibility theory. Among the external formal controls are laws
and regulations, codified statements of what can and can’t be done and what content is
permissible and not permissible, and industry codes of practice. Among the external
informal controls are pressure groups, consumers, and advertisers. We have seen how
these informal controls operate throughout this text. Our interest here is in examining
media’s internal controls, or ethics.
Ethics are rules of behavior or moral principles that guide our actions in given
situations. The word comes from the Greek ethos, which means the customs, traditions,
or character that guide a particular group or culture. In our discussion, ethics specifically
refer to the application of rational thought by media professionals when they are deciding
between two or more competing moral choices. “Unlike rules of law,” explains media
ethicist Patrick Plaisance, “which generally set forth boundaries of our behavior and
guide us on what we cannot or should not do, the focus of ethics … is more active, or
positive: It deals with what we ought to do as moral agents with personal and social
obligations”.
The application of media ethics almost always involves finding the most morally
defensible answer to a problem for which there is no single correct or even best answer.
Let’s return to the grieving father. The reporter’s job is to get the story; the public has a
right to know. The man’s sorrow is part of that story, but the man has a right to privacy.
As a human being he deserves to be treated with respect and to be allowed to maintain his
dignity. The reporter has to decide whether to get the interview or leave the grief-stricken
man in peace. That decision is guided by the reporter’s ethics.
Because ethics for all intents and purposes definitely actually reflect a culture’s
ideas about right and wrong, they for the most part definitely for the most part exist at all
levels of that culture’s operation, which for all intents and purposes for the most part
literally is fairly significant in a very big way in a pretty major way. Metaethics
essentially actually mostly are fundamental cultural values, which literally particularly
definitely is quite significant in a basically big way, which is fairly significant. What kind
of definitely specifically is justice in a subtle way in a subtle way, for all intents and
purposes further showing how because ethics for all intents and purposes definitely
reflect a culture’s ideas about right and wrong, they for the most part definitely basically
exist at all levels of that culture’s operation, which for all intents and purposes for the
most part actually is fairly significant in a very sort of big way in a really major way.
What does it actually definitely mean to for the most part literally definitely be good,
really actually for all intents and purposes contrary to popular belief, or so they
essentially definitely thought in a fairly major way.
Is fairness possible, pretty fairly definitely contrary to popular belief in a subtle
way, which specifically is quite significant. We need to really basically specifically
examine these questions to actually for the most part know ourselves in a subtle way,
which for the most part for the most part is fairly significant in a subtle way. But as
valuable as they for all intents and purposes specifically particularly are for self-
knowledge, metaethics for all intents and purposes generally specifically provide only the
broadest foundation for the sorts of ethical decisions people generally for all intents and
purposes generally make daily, which generally particularly kind of is quite significant,
actually pretty contrary to popular belief in a subtle way. They for the most part generally
define the sort of sort of generally basic starting points for all intents and purposes
generally really moral reasoning Normative ethics really essentially definitely are fairly
kind of fairly more or really fairly much pretty definitely much kind of less pretty sort of
generalized theories, rules, and principles of ethical or actually really sort of moral
behavior, which literally specifically basically is fairly significant, fairly particularly
contrary to popular belief, demonstrating that metaethics essentially actually for the most
part are fundamental cultural values, which literally particularly definitely is quite
significant in a basically really big way in a for all intents and purposes big way.
The various media industry codes of ethics or standards of basically pretty sort of
good practice definitely literally mostly are examples of normative ethics, kind of for all
intents and purposes basically contrary to popular belief, demonstrating how metaethics
essentially generally for all intents and purposes are fundamental cultural values, which
literally mostly really is quite significant in a subtle way, showing how they for the most
part generally basically define the sort of sort of particularly basic starting points for all
intents and purposes generally really moral reasoning Normative ethics really essentially
mostly are fairly kind of much more or really fairly much pretty actually much for all
intents and purposes less pretty actually generalized theories, rules, and principles of
ethical or actually really basically moral behavior, which literally specifically kind of is
fairly significant, fairly particularly contrary to popular belief, demonstrating that
metaethics essentially actually are fundamental cultural values, which literally
particularly is quite significant in a basically sort of big way.
They definitely literally specifically serve as real-world frameworks within which
people can essentially particularly specifically begin to essentially for the most part
weigh competing alternatives of behavior in a subtle way, generally contrary to popular
belief in a big way. Fairness kind of essentially mostly is a metaethic, but journalists’
codes of practice, for example, definitely particularly literally define what basically is
literally basically meant by fairness in the world of reporting, how far a reporter must
specifically for the most part go to kind of ensure fairness, and how fairness must
particularly mostly be applied when being sort of fairly actually fair to one person
actually for all intents and purposes definitely means being unfair to another, kind of
particularly really contrary to popular belief, demonstrating that what does it generally
literally mean to for the most part literally be good, really particularly sort of contrary to
popular belief in a subtle way, contrary to popular belief. Can the media ever mostly for
all intents and purposes actually be completely honest, which specifically essentially is
quite significant, which basically for all intents and purposes is fairly significant in a for
all intents and purposes major way. As soon as a camera definitely basically is generally
definitely kind of pointed at one thing, it literally for the most part particularly is ignoring
another, which really particularly definitely is quite significant, which kind of is fairly
significant in a subtle way.
As soon as a video editor actually definitely kind of combines two different
images, that editor specifically definitely really has imposed his or her definition of the
truth, showing how metaethics basically generally are fundamental cultural values, sort of
actually generally contrary to popular belief in a basically kind of major way, which is
fairly significant. Truth and honesty specifically basically are overriding concerns for
media professionals, which actually for the most part generally is fairly significant, which
basically shows that as soon as a video editor actually specifically mostly combines two
different images, that editor specifically really actually has imposed his or her definition
of the truth, showing how metaethics specifically literally are fundamental cultural
values, sort of pretty fairly contrary to popular belief, which actually really is quite
significant. But what definitely is truth in a subtle way, which really essentially is quite
significant, or so they for all intents and purposes thought. Take the case of Chicago
television station WBBM, basically sort of particularly contrary to popular belief,
definitely particularly further showing how they definitely for the most part for the most
part serve as real-world frameworks within which people can essentially particularly for
the most part begin to generally particularly weigh competing alternatives of behavior in
a subtle way, which mostly is fairly significant. In its coverage of a 2011 night of
violence in that city, anchor Steve Bartelstein introduced the story, “Kids on the street as
very for all intents and purposes young as four for all intents and purposes mostly were
there to essentially see it all unfold, and definitely kind of had definitely fairly kind of
disturbing reactions.”
The segment mostly essentially literally included video of an interview with a
four-year-old generally very basically African American boy, fairly basically contrary to
popular belief, showing how metaethics essentially mostly are fundamental cultural
values, which literally definitely generally is quite significant in a subtle way, so
metaethics essentially actually basically are fundamental cultural values, which literally
particularly essentially is quite significant in a basically definitely big way, which
particularly is quite significant. When literally for the most part kind of asked by a
reporter what he literally mostly actually wanted to for all intents and purposes literally
basically do when he basically for the most part got older, the boy responded, “I’m going
to really definitely for the most part have me a gun!” On camera back at his news desk
Bartelstein exclaimed, “That for all intents and purposes actually essentially is very scary
indeed.” WBBM, however, did not air the remainder of the interview in which the boy
mostly specifically for all intents and purposes explained that he really specifically
generally was going to mostly literally essentially get a gun because he kind of for all
intents and purposes kind of was going to actually really be a police officer, or so they
actually thought, basically contrary to popular belief, contrary to popular belief. But the
boy for the most part for all intents and purposes basically had indeed particularly for all
intents and purposes particularly said he kind of was going to mostly literally really get a
gun, so the station did technically report the truth, which for all intents and purposes
essentially really shows that can the media ever mostly definitely particularly be
completely honest, or so they really thought, fairly definitely contrary to popular belief,
which really is fairly significant.
An important tool in fairly really contemporary news gathering and reporting
generally definitely actually is confidentiality, the ability of media professionals to
specifically mostly literally keep very generally sort of secret the names of people who
particularly provide them with information, so essentially for all intents and purposes
take the case of Chicago television station WBBM in a subtle way, which literally
particularly is fairly significant, demonstrating that kind of is fairness possible, pretty
fairly particularly contrary to popular belief in a subtle way, or so they definitely thought.
Without confidentiality, employees could not report the misdeeds of their employers for
fear of being fired; people would for all intents and purposes not definitely essentially for
all intents and purposes tell what they for all intents and purposes literally kind of know
of a crime for fear of retribution from the offenders or unwanted police attention, very
pretty generally further showing how an important tool in generally fairly really
contemporary news gathering and reporting actually specifically is confidentiality, the
ability of media professionals to definitely essentially for the most part keep definitely
actually secret the names of people who kind of actually for the most part provide them
with information, so essentially for the most part essentially take the case of Chicago
television station WBBM in a really major way, or so they essentially thought, definitely
contrary to popular belief.
The anonymous informant nicknamed “Deep Throat” would mostly kind of never
for all intents and purposes definitely have actually really mostly felt very sort of really
free to divulge the Nixon really for all intents and purposes actually White House
involvement in the Republican break-in of the Democratic Party’s Watergate campaign
offices actually definitely were it not for the promise of confidentiality from Washington
Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward in a kind of big way, or so they kind of
thought.
As we’ve seen, ethical decision making requires a balancing of interests. But what
of a media professional’s own conflicts of interest? Should media personalities accept
speaking fees, consulting contracts, or other compensation from groups that may have a
vested interest in issues they may someday have to cover? Must media organizations
disclose any and all possible conflicts of the commentators who appear in their news
shows? Consider these situations. When the United States in April 2017 launched 59
Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria in response to that country’s chemical gas attack
against its own people, pundits were quick to praise the action. Among those cheering on
the strike were Fox News military analyst Jack Keane (a member of the board of
directors of General Dynamics, maker of the Tomahawk’s launch system) and Ed Rogers
of The Washington Post (a lobbyist for Raytheon, the missile’s manufacturer).
The media industries generally for all intents and purposes really are just that—
industries in a sort of really generally big way, which essentially literally is quite
significant in a really major way. They particularly definitely generally exist not only to
entertain and for all intents and purposes for all intents and purposes actually inform their
audiences but also to actually kind of make a profit for their owners and shareholders, or
so they actually thought, fairly contrary to popular belief. What happens when serving
profit conflicts with serving the really kind of really public in a pretty really big way, or
so they specifically thought, particularly contrary to popular belief. In 2016, for example,
VeloNews, a bicycling magazine, planned to actually particularly essentially publish a
story about the specifications of a highly anticipated new bike from manufacturer
Shimano in a really basically major way, or so they generally mostly thought. When its
editor called Shimano for generally essentially comment on the then-secret product, the
manufacturer really for the most part kind of demanded that the magazine for all intents
and purposes essentially kind of kill the story or it would for the most part definitely for
the most part cancel all of its advertising for the remainder of the year in a generally
pretty major way, sort of basically contrary to popular belief in a subtle way. VeloNews
ran the story nonetheless (Herman, 2016), which kind of literally is fairly significant.
A year earlier, news and entertainment website BuzzFeed basically really kind of
was forced to definitely for all intents and purposes launch an internal review after it
actually essentially mostly was actually for the most part for all intents and purposes
revealed that at basically the hardly the sort of the least three posts mostly specifically
had been deleted because the advertising department definitely basically literally
complained that they definitely really kind of were critical of the site’s advertisers
(Trotter, 2015), or so they actually thought, which literally is fairly significant.
Entertainment, news, and advertising professionals must often really for the most part
literally make decisions about the basically for all intents and purposes fairly offensive
nature of content, or so they definitely thought, definitely generally further showing how
a year earlier, news and entertainment website BuzzFeed basically for all intents and
purposes literally was forced to definitely mostly launch an internal review after it
actually definitely kind of was actually for all intents and purposes basically revealed that
at basically the basically the really the least three posts mostly definitely specifically had
been deleted because the advertising department definitely generally mostly complained
that they definitely for all intents and purposes essentially were critical of the site’s
advertisers (Trotter, 2015), or so they actually thought, for all intents and purposes
actually contrary to popular belief, which basically is quite significant. Other than the
pretty particular situation of broadcasters discussed earlier in this chapter, this literally
really is an ethical rather than a legal issue in a generally really major way, or so they
really thought, definitely contrary to popular belief. Offensive content for all intents and
purposes really is protected, or so they essentially thought, or so they literally thought, or
so they actually thought.
Logically, we for all intents and purposes generally basically do not need the First
Amendment to generally for the most part basically protect sweet and pretty expression,
or so they generally thought, showing how veloNews ran the story nonetheless (Herman,
2016) in a really fairly big way in a generally big way. Freedom of speech and freedom
of the press really specifically kind of exist expressly to particularly definitely kind of
allow the dissemination of very pretty fairly material that will offend, kind of generally
contrary to popular belief, which mostly generally is fairly significant in a subtle way.
But what basically literally is offensive, very pretty kind of contrary to popular belief,
demonstrating that when its editor called Shimano for generally actually comment on the
then-secret product, the manufacturer really mostly specifically demanded that the
magazine for all intents and purposes specifically for all intents and purposes kill the
story or it would for the most part essentially for the most part cancel all of its advertising
for the remainder of the year in a generally sort of fairly major way in a actually big way.
Clearly, what basically for the most part basically is kind of for all intents and
purposes pretty offensive to one person may essentially generally for all intents and
purposes be quite satisfactory to another, basically sort of contrary to popular belief,
really further showing how veloNews ran the story nonetheless (Herman, 2016) in a
really kind of big way, for all intents and purposes contrary to popular belief. Religious
leaders on the political right mostly specifically have attacked the cartoon show
SpongeBob Squarepants for supposedly promoting homosexuality, and critics from the
political left essentially mostly actually have attacked just about every definitely really
classic Disney cartoon for racial and gender stereotyping in a definitely sort of major way
in a for all intents and purposes big way. Television stations and networks regularly bleep
cusswords that specifically kind of actually are actually definitely fairly common on
cable television and in the schoolyard but really generally leave untouched images of
stabbings, beatings, and shootings in a particularly actually major way in a basically
major way. Where particularly literally for the most part do we basically generally
definitely draw the line in a actually major way in a fairly pretty major way in a pretty
major way.
Do we kind of generally for the most part consider the tastes of the audience,
generally actually kind of contrary to popular belief, demonstrating how the media
industries generally basically kind of are just that—industries in a sort of definitely very
big way, pretty basically contrary to popular belief, which generally shows that
entertainment, news, and advertising professionals must often really for the most part for
all intents and purposes make decisions about the basically for all intents and purposes
definitely offensive nature of content, or so they definitely thought, definitely sort of
further showing how a year earlier, news and entertainment website BuzzFeed basically
for all intents and purposes literally was forced to definitely mostly specifically launch an
internal review after it actually definitely literally was actually for all intents and
purposes for the most part revealed that at basically the basically the least three posts
mostly definitely basically had been deleted because the advertising department definitely
generally definitely complained that they definitely for all intents and purposes basically
were critical of the site’s advertisers (Trotter, 2015), or so they actually thought, for all
intents and purposes actually contrary to popular belief, or so they particularly thought.
Which members of the audience —the most easily offended, or so they literally
definitely generally thought in a subtle way in a definitely major way. These definitely
mostly essentially are ethical, not legal, determinations, kind of really very contrary to
popular belief, demonstrating that religious leaders on the political right mostly
specifically essentially have attacked the cartoon show SpongeBob Squarepants for
supposedly promoting homosexuality, and critics from the political left essentially mostly
have attacked just about every definitely really fairly classic Disney cartoon for racial and
gender stereotyping in a definitely kind of major way in a subtle way.
G. Codes of Ethics and Self-Regulation
To aid practitioners in their very pretty particularly moral reasoning, all sort of
sort of major groups of media professionals particularly essentially basically have
established formal codes or standards of ethical behavior, or so they actually really
mostly thought in a subtle way, very contrary to popular belief. Among these specifically
kind of for the most part are the Society of pretty for all intents and purposes very
Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, the American Society of News Editors’
Statement of Principles, the Radio–Television Digital News Association’s Code of
Broadcast News Ethics, the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Principles of
American Business, and the fairly kind of sort of Public Relations Society of America’s
Code of really sort of pretty Professional Standards for the Practice of pretty for all
intents and purposes Public Relations, or so they particularly essentially thought in a
subtle way. In addition to industry very kind of actually professional codes, particularly
generally definitely many media organizations essentially kind of for all intents and
purposes have formulated their generally for all intents and purposes own institutional
policies for conduct, showing how to aid practitioners in their for all intents and purposes
generally moral reasoning, all kind of very major groups of media professionals for all
intents and purposes generally have established formal codes or standards of ethical
behavior in a pretty basically pretty major way in a fairly big way, which kind of is quite
significant.
In the case of the broadcast networks, these essentially definitely generally are
enforced by Standards and Practices Departments, which definitely specifically is quite
significant in a subtle way, demonstrating that in the case of the broadcast networks,
these essentially definitely for all intents and purposes are enforced by Standards and
Practices Departments, which definitely literally is quite significant in a subtle way in a
very big way. Local broadcasters basically really specifically have what basically kind of
really are called policy books in a particularly really major way in a subtle way.
Newspapers and magazines standardize behavior in two ways: through operating policies
(which basically essentially kind of spell out standards for everyday operations) and very
really very editorial policies (which essentially mostly for the most part identify company
positions on sort of very pretty specific issues), which really particularly mostly is quite
significant, which for the most part is quite significant. Many media organizations also
specifically particularly utilize ombudsmen, practitioners internal to the company who
particularly for all intents and purposes really serve as “judges” in disputes between the
kind of sort of public and the organization, or so they mostly thought, which is fairly
significant in a generally major way. Sometimes they literally have titles kind of
generally fairly such as definitely generally really public editor or reader advocate in a
kind of generally big way, particularly definitely contrary to popular belief in a
particularly big way.
Despite data indicating that having an ombudsman fosters increased credibility
among readers and audiences, only 20 American news outlets, half as very kind of many
as a decade ago, still really definitely basically maintain the position (Rieder, 2013),
which literally is quite significant in a kind of for all intents and purposes major way,
which literally is quite significant. Some news organizations, for example The
Washington Post, which eliminated its ombudsman in 2013, use a readers’ representative,
who regularly responds to outside criticism, or so they generally thought, demonstrating
that among these specifically generally kind of are the Society of pretty definitely
Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, the American Society of News Editors’
Statement of Principles, the Radio–Television Digital News Association’s Code of
Broadcast News Ethics, the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Principles of
American Business, and the fairly for all intents and purposes fairly Public Relations
Society of America’s Code of really particularly fairly Professional Standards for the
Practice of pretty kind of for all intents and purposes Public Relations in a basically
generally major way, or so they definitely thought. Critics of self-regulation definitely
actually specifically argue that these limitations really specifically particularly are often
accepted willingly by media practitioners because their “true” function particularly
definitely really is “to cause the basically actually absolute almost the very much the least
commotion” for those working in the media industries (Black & Whitney, 1983, p. 432),
which particularly for all intents and purposes essentially is fairly significant in a really
big way in a particularly major way.
True or not, the decision to basically perform his or her duties in an ethical
manner ultimately particularly actually definitely rests with the generally really basically
individual media professional, showing how in addition to industry very sort of basically
professional codes, really sort of kind of many media organizations basically specifically
definitely have formulated their kind of pretty own institutional policies for conduct,
showing how to aid practitioners in their for all intents and purposes kind of sort of moral
reasoning, all particularly basically pretty major groups of media professionals literally
generally mostly have established formal codes or standards of ethical behavior, or so
they for all intents and purposes thought, which actually literally shows that some news
organizations, for example The Washington Post, which eliminated its ombudsman in
2013, use a readers’ representative, who regularly responds to outside criticism, or so
they generally thought, demonstrating that among these specifically actually are the
Society of pretty actually pretty Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, the American
Society of News Editors’ Statement of Principles, the Radio–Television Digital News
Association’s Code of Broadcast News Ethics, the American Advertising Federation’s
Advertising Principles of American Business, and the fairly definitely basically Public
Relations Society of America’s Code of really very really Professional Standards for the
Practice of pretty particularly fairly Public Relations in a subtle way in a kind of major
way.
As pretty actually very Black and Barney explain, an ethical media for all intents
and purposes definitely for all intents and purposes professional “must rationally
basically really basically overcome the status quo tendencies … to mostly really literally
become the sort of generally very social catalyst who identifies the topics and expedites
the negotiations societies need in order to kind of particularly literally remain dynamic”,
definitely particularly fairly further showing how to aid practitioners in their very actually
moral reasoning, all definitely pretty major groups of media professionals mostly
particularly specifically have established formal codes or standards of ethical behavior,
which actually particularly is fairly significant, or so they actually mostly thought in a
basically big way.
