San Jose Mercury News
PREAMBLE
The San Jose Mercury News is committed to the highest ethical standards. To take pride in the work we do, we must do our work honestly.
Fairness and accuracy are among our core values. But perhaps nothing stands above the need for the newspaper to maintain and preserve its integrity. We cannot hold the people we cover to standards we do not meet ourselves. The public's trust in our work - our most important asset - depends on our meeting these high standards.
This document is meant to provide a set of guideposts. It examines the fundamental and often difficult questions staff members might confront in the course of carrying out our journalistic mission. No policy can forecast every possible conflict of interest or ethical quandary that an employee of the Mercury News might confront. But this policy is an attempt to provide boundaries and encourage employees to be aware that, as journalists, we must adhere to a code of conduct that is equal parts ethics and common sense.
An ethics policy should be a living document. The committee that drafted these guidelines anticipated that the Mercury News, on occasion, must revisit the important ethical issues of the day to ensure its ethics policy does not become obsolete or, worse, ignored. Therefore, these are broad outlines; the newspaper will establish a fair method of dealing with ethical questions.
The Mercury News first wrote an ethics policy in the 1980's. In 2001 the policy was revised to address three areas: financial holdings, freelancing and gifts. This revision addresses recent concerns over the transparency of our journalism: our use of bylines, credit lines, datelines, and unattributed sources.
(An important note: Our relationship to our parent company, Knight Ridder, is a special case and, therefore, outside the boundaries of this policy. It is unique among all possible relationships and we acknowledge that at the outset. For example, it is permissible to hold stock in Knight Ridder -- even if you're covering it or making decisions about play and placement.)
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