The ethical orientations of journalists within the journalistic culture of Ecuador

Abstract

This article presents the results related to the ethical values ​​of the Ecuadorian journalists obtained from the Culture Journalistic Project of Ecuador (CPE). The main objective of this study is to determine the traditional and common ethical guidelines shared by the interviewees, since these principles define the responsibility, decisions, autonomy and professional practice of journalists. Professional ethics is one of the main factors that determine the level of professionalism of journalists and the professionalization of journalism; the regulation of the media market -based on the economic and business model of the media-; the self-regulation of the media -deontological codes-; State interventionism and the involvement of civil society in the communication process -participation and access to citizen information-. In this study, 31 in-depth interviews were conducted with active journalists from 6 national media and a contextual analysis of the journalistic culture of Ecuador. The results show that the journalists interviewed in Ecuador are classified within the journalistic context, according to the perspectives proposed by Plaisance (2005) and Hanitzsch (2007) based on ethical ideologies, as eminently absolutist, tending to the situationism and to a lesser extent to the exceptionism.