Journalistic Codes of Ethics in Europe

There are over 30 national codes of ethics for journalism in force in Europe at the moment. The number of codes is greater than that of press councils — there are at present 20 functioning councils in Europe. Most of the codes have been established by the journalists' associations, and revised during the 1990s. Several completely new codes have been recently created in the new Central and Eastern European democracies. This article reports on a study of 31 codes (representing 29 countries). The most common functions of the European codes is to show accountability to the public and the sources, and to protect the professional integrity of journalists from external interference. On a general level the codes are similar — 13 main themes are present in almost all of them. On the level of individual principles there are, however, several differences. Among 61 ethical principles compared, only 24 are present in more than half of the codes. The most common principles stress the truthfulness of information, the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, etc., fair means in gathering the information, integrity of the source and the journalist, and freedom of expression and comment. The differences and similarities between the national codes do not seem to follow any geographical, lingual or other traditional dividing lines.