Ethics in Conflict

CMT collaborated with the International Committee of the Red Cross to examine how foreign correspondents reporting from fields of conflict go about making often tricky decisions, within an ethical framework.

As we noted in our report, no field of news reporting is more dangerous than reporting conflict. There are dangers for the reporters, their crews, their fixers and their producers – the latter two are often local hires who can face the wrath of their governments and even their communities for helping foreign reporters. But there are also dangers for those being reported on and their contacts. How do foreign correspondents make what are usually snap decisions? Do they call on the ethical codes written by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, or by their own media organisations?

We spoke with six former foreign correspondents and photojournalists to ask this question. We found that for these six people – Kate Geraghty, Stan Grant, Sophie McNeill, Richard Murray, Gary Ramage and Ginny Stein – their ethical approaches varied considerably. They were however consistent in saying they took little notice of formal codes of ethics (with the exception of Geraghty) but relied more on internalised principles such as ‘do no harm’ and ‘don’t hurt people’.

You can read our report here. 

Monica Attard, CMT Co-Director