A world without ethics is not a happy one. In every walk of life, people have to follow a certain code of conduct. Without such a code, no one would get anywhere in life. There would also be a lot of frustration and anger because no one would help each other.
Reporters have to be ethical, or they will run out of people who are willing to help them. Keeping to the ethical guidelines is not hard. Always letting people know that they are a reporter, being fair and objective and not sensationalizing their stories keeps their reputation clean. Also always stay within the law, being truthful and not making a habit out of using people for your own advantage. Breaking these rules has a large potential for blowing up in your face.
A clean reputation means people will be willing to answer questions and talk to a reporter. Without the willingness of the citizen, being a reporter would be incredibly difficult. Reporters cannot be everywhere at once, meaning they will not have first hand experience of everything that they need to write about. In order to get a story right, questions need to be asked and different perspectives gained in order to get the truth.
It is a reporter’s duty to let their audience know what the truth is. People need to know what is going on not only in their communities but in the world. Everyone should know how the decisions of others affect their lives.
When reporters decide it is alright to do underhanded, dishonest things to get the information they want, they lose their credibility and ruin their reputation. A ruined reputation means the loss of contacts.
A reporter with bad credibility is much like the story about the boy who cried wolf. If a reporter lies they lose credibility and no one will believe them when they finally tell a true story. That could be a problem, especially if it is a story of importance. If no one is willing to trust what is written, their career is over, what good are they?
Yet there are those people who decide they are above ethical rules, they do not need to treat others in a respectful way. Getting what they want is all that matters. As a result, reporters who have lied to their audiences and gotten caught have few choices left. Retiring from the job or starting completely over, knowing they may never be successful again are really the only choices they have.
Jayson Blair, Jack Kelly, Janet Cooke and Jason Hay are all ‘reporters gone bad.’  They decided that following the ethical code was not worth the trouble and discovered they were wrong.
Jayson Blair reported for the New York Times. He wrote many things that were not true, such as quotes from people he never talked to. Blair also lied. He said he went to places all over when he really was at home.  He committed journalistic fraud, ending his career before he reached 30.
Jack Kelly was a foreign correspondent for USA Today. He even won awards for his reporting. He made up quotes from people he had never talked to. He was fired in January 2004.
As a reporter for the Washington Post, Janet Cooke made up people. She wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning columns on these fake people, they were supposedly a 10-year-old heroin addict and his mother who were living in the slums.
Plagiarism and making up direct quotes is what Jayson Hay did to get himself fired. Another man with his career ruined before he reached 30.
These writers had to learn the hard way just how important ethical behaviour is. What kind of life is it when there is no trust and the once-loved career is no longer an option?
For many people, using ethical behaviour is like second nature. If everyone practiced such behaviour in their everyday lives, it would easily become second nature.
In the end, it is not worth losing everything, simply to write a front page story. Some things are more important than fame, like truth, honesty and trust. It is better to write and never make the front page or win awards but have your credibility and reputation.