ABSTRACT
In the face of the vastness and complexities of the ethical dilemmas thrown up by the modern media, how is the journalist to react? What precisely is good journalism? What are the models for ‘good’ practice? How can the bad, the ugly and the unacceptable be eliminated? Journalists often focus on skills when describing a ‘good journalist’. Thus, ‘having a nose for a story’, being able to take a reliable note and handle the computer technology confidently, writing accurately and colourfully are amongst the attributes commonly stressed. However, most journalists, if pressed to identify the strictly ethical aspects of ‘good journalism’, are likely to display ambivalent, contradictory and confused attitudes. To clarify the issue, it might be useful to identify a few prominent positions.
