Abstract

Background: Ethics is a component of virtue which can be elaborated and applied in every society. The media also finds relevance in ethics. Since ethics has a direct relationship with humans and societies, the media cannot be unethical. This study aims to evaluate observance of professional ethics by official news agencies in Iran.

Methods: The descriptive method was used in this study. The statistical population included all official Iranian news agencies that were active from March 2013 to August 2013. Out of this population, ten news agencies were selected as available samples: Arya, IRNA, ILNA, ISNA, IKNA, Borna, Khabar On line, Fars, Mehr, and MOJ. The research tool was inverse questionnaire, and the obtained data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics (mean value and standard deviation).

Results: The findings showed that the maximum and minimum mean values corresponded to the lack of plagiarism index (with a mean value of 3.65) and the independence index (with a mean value of 1.47) respectively. Therefore, the lack of plagiarism index and the independence index represented the most and the least successful instances of observing professional ethics respectively. Moreover, due consideration of the findings revealed that 50 percent of the selected news agencies had not observed professional ethical principles.

Conclusion: Based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that non-existence of codified professional ethics for the Iranian media, non-existence of private Iranian media, and the fact that all Iranian media are public organizations, play an effective role in non-observance of professional ethics by the Iranian media.