Alma Selvaggia Rinaldi
Ethical codes for journalists, and the challenges that ensue are not globally agreed upon, as they have different interpretations depending on the cultural, political and social context to which they are applied. They are specific to each community. Take the example of Palestinian journalists: when they apply Western ethical values of objectivity and impartiality to their reporting, a fair depiction of the conflict remains difficult to reach, not solely because their identity is deeply embedded with their conflict, yet also due to cultural and infrastructural obstructions. Although Western-centred ethics of journalism continue to dominate, they have never been the practices in countries where authoritarianism, state-owned media, neo-colonialism, self-censorship and religion are primal factors. One cannot expect global journalistic ethics to prevail when the overarching political, economic and social structures enabling or disabling journalists to uphold them, and the moral dilemmas presented to them, vary drastically worldwide.
When covering the occupation of their own land, Palestinian journalists struggle to be objective due to issues of patriotism and an obligation to resistance narratives under apartheid. A reporting embedded with emotions, trauma and inherent personal biases due to Palestinian nationality is a product of the history of Palestinian resistance against Israel’s occupation. Palestinian narratives have become intrinsic with resistance and occupation. Adversely, journalists’ ethics require a level of detachment, fairness and independence difficult when reporting under apartheid. In this context, Palestinian journalists are not just professionals attempting to uphold an ethical code, yet also an interpretative community: a balance between objectivity and advocacy for a journalist’s personal cause are difficult to reach, pointing to the wider question of whether objectivity when reporting on one’s own conflict is possible at all.
Additionally, the political framework surrounding Palestinian resistance culture also poses ethical challenges to Palestinian journalists, as it shapes press laws and the media structures within which journalists work. Palestinian press law dictates that, “it is prohibited for the publication to publish…articles that would offend national unity…”, where national unity is theoretically intertwined with the notion of resistance. Consider that leaving the concept of ‘national unity’ open to interpretation, is an additional struggle for objectivity when reporting the occupation, as this unclarity often stimulates Palestinian journalists’ self-censorship, who are often reluctant to take the risk to cross legally undefined boundaries of what is allowed or not. For instance, pro-Zionist narratives counter the reality of national unity for Palestinians, thus Palestinian journalists often dismiss important sources and information on such a pretext, further exercising their biases on the reporting of the conflict and often turning to activism rather than journalism.
Aside from cultural rules and press laws, the political ownership of Palestinian news outlets constitutes another ethical constraint for Palestinian journalists aiming to uphold an objective practice. Palestinian journalists have repeatedly spoken of the ethical struggle they face when working for newspapers which are often politicised and censored, whose political agendas are the only framework within which information will be published and broadcasted. Palestinian journalists are not free in their reporting of information. Here, Palestinian journalists face ethical challenges on both ends: on the one side, by the party press nature of news outlets, owned by the Palestinian Authority, the Fatah Party, or Hamas, and on the other side, from the violent Israeli occupation which physically and psychologically threatens Palestinian journalists by, for instance, refusing to renew their press cards. Thus, Palestinian journalists need to shape their work around restrictive guidelines, often engaging in self-censorship, struggling to criticise the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, or Hamas respectively, not being allowed to investigate issues of favouritism and corruption, while simultaneously facing recurrent detention and interrogation, exacerbating the ethical attempt to report objectively.
Finally, another obstacle to Palestinian journalists’ objectivity when reporting on the conflict lies in the cultural traditions of the Palestinian audience, and consequentially how Palestinian journalists must frame information for it to be ‘accepted’ by their audiences, depending on what the latter considers as ethical. Struggling to find a balance to satisfy both state and the public, again leads to self-censorship and biased reporting and framing. For instance, if Palestinian journalists supported the US and their policies in their reports, their message would likely be rejected by Palestinian and Arab audiences, failing in their mission to inform, yet also feeding the polarisation of opinions in Palestine and more generally in the Arab world. The ethical codes within which Palestinian journalists must work are shaped by their audience, their political representatives, and often, by Islamic traditions, posing a challenge in itself as not allowing for independence in reporting. Eighty-five percent of Palestine is Muslim, where Islamic communication prevails: the latter is grounded in the principle of taqwa or piety, believing in humans’ innate “greatness and dignity” that cannot be violated via communication: this means that ethically, Palestinian journalists cannot criticise individual figures, thus unable to act as watchdogs of those in power. Indeed, Palestinian journalists cannot cover politicians’ personal lives, which means not investigating issues of corruption, nepotism or political inconsistency. Here, cleavages between Western and Islamic and Arab norms, pervasive in Palestinian culture, alongside their application to journalism, are evident. Clearly, objectivity presents itself as an ethical challenge to Palestinian journalists in many ways. For journalists to serve their function as nonbiased information-providers, while being historical, cultural and social products of the conflict they report on themselves, universal journalistic ethics must be redefined.
LSESU AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 