Chris Roberts







Fit to post but not fit to print: Channel consistency and virtue ethics for legacy print journalism organisations

Many legacy print media organisations with web operations often have differing ethical standards between what is printed and what is posted online. This US-focused discussion describes key differing standards, suggests some justifications for the differences but also their potentially deleterious effects, and offers the virtue ethics approach of Aristotle, MacIntyre, and others as a guide for decision-makers at single news organisations serving multiple communication channels.

Keywords: journalism ethics; Aristotle; MacIntyre, virtue ethics; online journalism; credibility


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Note on the contributor

Chris Roberts is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama where he was a student in the 1980s before a career as a reporter and editor at the largest newspapers in Alabama and South Carolina. He earned a doctoral degree in 2007 at the University of South Carolina. He is co-author (with Jay Black) of Doing ethics in media: Theories and practical applications (Routledge, 2011) and published in the Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, and elsewhere.