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  • IFJ calls on journalists to respect the professional principles of the Global Ethics Charter

    Unverified information, unsourced videos and images from social networks: the war between Hamas and Israel is also a war of communication. The IFJ, the world's leading professional organisation of journalists, reiterates that the professional principles of journalists must be absolutely respected. The duty is to provide information in the public interest.

    Two weeks after the start of the war between Hamas and Israel, the com­mu­ni­ca­tion war is intense, with each side defend­ing «its» truth. Banned from work­ing in the Gaza Strip, an open-air prison for Pales­tin­ian civil­ians, many for­eign jour­nal­ists all too often use sec­ondary sources or «offi­cial» sources from each side, with­out being able to check their verac­i­ty. This works to the detri­ment of cit­i­zens, one of whose fun­da­men­tal rights is «to be well informed».

    Con­fus­ing haste with speed, many media have pub­lished false infor­ma­tion and images that have not been con­tex­tu­alised, ver­i­fied or pre­sent­ed as reli­able. This has led some news organ­i­sa­tions to make offi­cial apolo­gies, such as BBC about their cov­er­age of pro-pales­tin­ian demon­stra­tions across Britain or CNN a few days ago, which had claimed that Israeli babies had been behead­ed in south­ern Israel, right­ly pro­vok­ing out­raged reac­tions around the world.

    How­ev­er, arti­cle 5 of the IFJ’s Glob­al Code of Ethics for Jour­nal­ists, to which all news­rooms should com­mit them­selves reminds us that «the notion of urgency or imme­di­a­cy in the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion shall not take prece­dence over the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of facts and sources […]». 

    In addi­tion to check­ing its sources, the IFJ calls on news­rooms around the world to «respect the dig­ni­ty of the per­sons quot­ed and/or rep­re­sent­ed» (arti­cle 8) by refrain­ing from pub­lish­ing shock­ing images that are often wide­ly shared on social net­works. Arti­cle 9 of the Glob­al Ethics Char­ter also reaf­firms that «jour­nal­ists must ensure that the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion or opin­ions does not con­tribute to hatred or prej­u­dice».

    In Gaza today, only local Pales­tin­ian jour­nal­ists, the vast major­i­ty of whom are mem­bers of the Pales­tin­ian Jour­nal­ists’ Syn­di­cate, the IFJ’s nation­al affil­i­ate, can pro­vide infor­ma­tion to the for­eign media. It is then up to these col­leagues to analyse the images and videos and check the infor­ma­tion with sev­er­al sources in order to inform the pub­lic.

    IFJ Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Antho­ny Bel­langer said: «Our pro­fes­sion­al prin­ci­ples, detailed in the IFJ Glob­al Ethics Char­ter, are the foun­da­tion of the jour­nal­ist’s mis­sion. The jour­nal­ist’s respon­si­bil­i­ty towards the pub­lic takes prece­dence over any oth­er respon­si­bil­i­ty, in par­tic­u­lar towards their employ­ers and the pub­lic author­i­ties. I call on jour­nal­ists the world over not to fall into the trap of infor­ma­tion over­load, dri­ven by social net­works, where say­ing counts for more than what is said, writ­ing counts for more than what is writ­ten, and show­ing counts for more than what is shown. Respect for the facts and for the right of the pub­lic to truth is the first duty of the jour­nal­ist. At this dif­fi­cult time, the IFJ, Asso­ciate UNESCO mem­ber, reaf­firms its sol­i­dar­i­ty with its Pales­tin­ian affil­i­ate and its sup­port for all jour­nal­ists. wher­ev­er they are.»

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