Stakeholders Versus Shareholders: Journalism, Business, and Ethics

Although the individual journalist is an essential unit of ethical agency, journalists are increasingly employees of large companies or corporations whose primary aim is to maximize returns to shareholders. This article discusses the many ethical dilemmas journalists' face in situations where one's role as a journalist and his or her employer's quest for profit. The author looks at other professional fields that also face this similar issue, and contends contend that business and journalism ethics, in particular, appear to have more in common than has generally been acknowledged and that the field of business ethics has yielded many concepts that appear to have relevance to journalism.