Category: Professional ethics, oaths, and pledges (ethics). Each language text below is one published, write-once file; the CID is computed over its exact bytes and is what an IFP-21 citation pins.
Restatement per IFP-22 Section 2.3. The Code is copyrighted by the Society of Professional Journalists; this entry is the registry's own prose describing what the Code holds, as of the accessed date.
The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics, last revised in 2014, is the most widely referenced ethics statement in American journalism. Its preamble grounds the whole code in a civic claim: public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy, and ethical journalism exists to secure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair, and thorough. The SPJ frames the code as a statement of abiding principles for all people in all media — voluntarily embraced, not enforced by the Society, and deliberately not a legal instrument. The authoritative text, with its supporting position papers, is at the source URL.
The Code arranges journalism's duties under four principles.
Seek truth and report it. Journalists take responsibility for the accuracy of their work: verify before release, prefer original sources, provide context, resist oversimplification, correct promptly and prominently, identify sources so the public can judge their reliability, and grant anonymity only with caution and real justification. The principle extends to courage — gathering and interpreting information honestly even when it is unpopular — and to giving subjects of coverage a chance to respond to allegations.
Minimize harm. Journalism treats sources, subjects, colleagues, and the public as human beings deserving respect: weigh the public's need for information against potential harm, show heightened care with juveniles, victims, and those inexperienced with media, respect privacy while distinguishing it from the powerful's desire to avoid scrutiny, and recognize that legal access to information is not the same as an ethical justification to publish it.
Act independently. The journalist's highest and primary obligation is to serve the public: refuse gifts, favors, and special treatment; avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived, and disclose the unavoidable ones; deny favored treatment to advertisers and donors; and distinguish news from advertising.
Be accountable and transparent. Ethical journalism means taking responsibility for one's work and explaining it: respond to questions about accuracy and fairness, acknowledge mistakes, expose unethical conduct in journalism itself — including one's own organization — and hold oneself to the same standards one applies to others.
Prepared from the instrument as published at the source URL, read as of the accessed date. Corrections ship as a superseding version; this version remains published because citations to it remain outstanding (IFP-22, Sections 2.3 and 4).