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Transparency

Transparency in journalism implies that journalists make practices, processes, and sources open to public scrutiny. In journalism studies, it is considered an ethical principle and norm.

As a concept, transparency means a commitment to openness by individuals, institutions, and organizations. In public administration and governance, transparency is deployed as a counteracting measure against forms of institutional and organizational opacity and secrecy. However, as an organizational principle it can be understood as entailing active disclosure, meaning that beyond openness, the public is given the means and opportunity as well as the motivation to seek the truth. Scholars, such as Lars Thøger Christensen and George Cheney, consider that transparency practices signify the willingness of institutions to allow for public scrutiny and participation in oversight.

However, in journalism studies, the definition of transparency is fluid and proves challenging for journalists and news organizations. Some scholars have pointed to difficulties in putting transparency into practice. Oftentimes it is not clear what has to be made transparent—whether it is the motives of journalists or news processes—and how this should be done in order for journalism to fulfil its role in society.

Mark Deuze (2005) defines transparency as “increasing ways in which people both inside and external to journalism are given a chance to monitor, check, criticize and even intervene in the journalistic process” (p. 455). The definition implies that journalists and news media organizations undertake deliberate actions—such as declaring potential conflict of interests in news—to enable the public to inspect the news content and its production. Through transparency, journalists commit to be forthright about their intentions or interests to gain trust among audiences. While transparency does not necessarily promise change of journalistic behavior, it could serve as a bulwark against inaccuracies and false news. Scholars, however, doubt whether media organizations and journalists go to great enough lengths to make their practices, processes, and sources accessible, considering frequent criticisms over the faults and failures of journalism.

Transparency for Whom and About What?

Digital technologies have given more control to the public to scrutinize journalism, thus paving the way for a monitorial tradition of journalistic practices. Comments sections on digital news platforms, for example, provide audiences spaces to engage with journalists and interrogate the news. Many journalists of legacy news media organizations have responded through more accessibility to their audiences and the public. For example, on news pages online, some journalists have links to their social networks sites such as Facebook and Twitter, or their own blogs where they share contacts, details about their news context or programs, and their analysis and personal opinions, while inviting audiences to share sources, tips, or views about their content. On their part, citizen journalists through blogs, for example, have torn the curtain of traditional journalism by interpreting and sharing news or exposing biases and sources of legacy news media.

Emergence of the Norm of Transparency

Traditional journalism has tarnished its image in the eyes of the public through hidden practices and processes as well as anonymized sources. In the predigital age, one of the common practices that marked opaqueness of journalism was ghostwriting, whereby journalists wrote articles but celebrities or other popular individuals were credited as the writer. (Ghostwriting appears in forms such as speechwriting, opinion columns, or even through celebrity tweets.) Ghostwriters are used for a variety of reasons, including to make up for persons who may be inexperienced writers. In the 19th and 20th centuries, publishers and journalists accepted ghostwriting as a way to make publications popular through the use of names of celebrities in the bylines. In the American Jazz Age of the 1920s, these ghostwriting practices blurred the lines between public relations and journalism, according to John Carvalho and colleagues. Ghostwriting returned in the digital age in the form of journalists writing articles for blog posts of professional sports players. Critics consider ghostwriting as unethical, a form of deception and an impediment toward truth-telling, especially when it involves the news.

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