Codes of Practice

The Financial Times has its own ‘code of ethics’ (see the appendix). In December 2003, the Financial Times updated its policy on facility trips, freelance work, corporate hospitality and gifts.

According to its policy, “The principle that we operate on is that the FT does not accept facility trips” in order to “control our own agenda”. In other words, the Financial Times stresses on its independence from the news sources. If the trip is really necessary for the article, the journalists are allowed to join, but the policy emphasises “strictly at the FT ’s expense”. This rule applies to not only the companies’ facilities but also governmental or non-governmental places and operations. The policy defines that “there is no obligation to print a story and that content of any story is a matter for the FT alone”. In addition, the policy makes it a rule to state “clearly at the end of the piece that the travel company or other sponsor has financed the trip” and the articles “should not appear on news, features or analysis pages”. Besides, the policy set a rule that “journalists should not accept a paid invitation to speak to a company they cover on a routine basis”. Bogler explains about the way to deal with the trips:

“We pay for the trip, because we pay for it, we…then say we will only pay for if there is journalistic value, you know, so if we think ‘okay it is important for you to see the new plant, that’s fine, but then don’t go for a week, go for two days, see the plant, come back and don’t spend four days on the beach’, you know”.

On gifts, the Financial Times policy says “minor items may be accepted” such as calendars, key rings, pens, paperweights, and corporate mementos.

“We are very strict on ethical things like gifts and trips. You cannot accept gifts beyond a certain value, I mean very small, you know. If you look given the gift or sent something, you can either send it back, or you give to a raffle, we put it to charity, we send it to charity”.

He talks about his experience of going to lunch with his news sources, and emphasises to take in consideration of the meaning of having the lunch with them. The lunch is not the one with friends but his news sources.

“When I was doing the LEX column, I went out to lunch with chief executives all the time. That’s fine. I am a matured journalist, then you know, I know what’s…I know the game that’s been played. They think that if they get to know me, and they tell me that strategy, and I know them firstly I would find it harder to write something critical. Right? But on the other hand, they have to realise that they are not my special friends, maybe I have seen one hundreds of chief executives in a year, so I will write critical things you know, whether I meet them or not”.

In addition, the Financial Times set their own code of practice for the employees’ financial interests and profits. It prohibits using the financial information they receive for their own profit, and having any company’s the reporters directly cover shares or securities.

According to ‘ FT Editorial Department: Code of Practice’, it requires all editorial staff to register their financial investments such as shares of domestic and foreign companies no matter public or private, derivative positions, and corporation bonds to the company. This registration keeps confidential, and the Editor, the Deputy Editor, Managing Editor and Deputy Managing Editor have the access to this.

Bloomberg also has its own code of conducts. One of them is based on the idea that the articles should be separated from the journalists’ financial interests. According to a journalist of Bloomberg, the journalists are not allowed to cover about the events or companies in which they have financial interest, direct or indirect, unless they disclose the interest to their supervisor. Besides, they do not accept any money, gifts and the treatment which is not available to the general public from any sources. About having the financial investments, he continues:

“Basically, we can own mutual funds (because we can't control how the fund managers decide to make their investments) but we can't own shares in companies that we cover and if we buy other shares we have to disclose our interests.　Disclosure is usually to the team leader and bureau chief and this is passed on to compliance people in the company (and probably lawyers)”.[17]

They are not allowed to write for other organisation including personal weblog sites.

Chapter 6

CONCLUSION

The business/financial journalists recognise that their role in society is for the audience such as the investors, the fund managers, the governmental people, and other people in economy and business. The journalists are the parts of economic system, and contribute to the successful market. An interviewee talks that the role is different from the other media and it is not for the voiceless people’s voice but for the market economy.

However, it is true that the journalists working for the business/financial news organisations tend to rethink of the meaning of their job. Some journalists feel difficulty to investigate a certain issue and frustration to focus on profit. The business/financial crimes like Enron and the insider trading in news organisations actually happened, so it is significant for the journalists to regulate themselves strictly. In addition, to have the big picture on every issue is necessary for the journalists to detect these wrong doings..

As a problem, the business/financial journalists tend to ride on the trend without deep scrutiny. This is the one of the reason for them not to be able to detect the corporation fraud. In addition, the rise of the public relations industry works as a block for the journalists.

Most of the interviewees do not mention the propaganda model, and some clearly says he is not familiar with this model. However, they actually recognise at least four elements as problems and keep trying to tackle them. About the intervention of ownership and advertisers, the journalists deny its possibility, and explain there is an agreement with owners not to intervene the editorial contents. Besides, there is also a clear boundary between editorial and advertising section not to allow the intervention of advertisers to the contents. About the source, they try to have multiple sources to be accurate, in other words, not to be manipulated by the one source. For the strong complaints on the contents of the reports, they have a policy to explain firmly not to change them except the case which they are inaccurate. Through the interview, there is no discussion about the ideology biases.

Through this research, I have found that the studies on the business/financial journalism are little compared with the ones on political journalism. The activities of the corporations already spread globally, and the market system works as well. The public relations industry also deploy internationally, so that there are risks for billions of people to be affected when the corporation cause the scandals or financial problems. As discussed in this paper, the corporations are the main actors in society, and have the more power than the governments. I suggest the study on the relation between the business/financial journalism and the source is needed from now on.

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