It is a little over 21 years since the Guardian put its editorial code on public view for the first time, posting the document on its website in what was then a pioneering step for a British newspaper. This statement of professional and ethical standards has been revised twice since then, in 2007 and 2011, and today a fully updated fourth iteration is published.
At more than 30 pages, the latest code is the most comprehensive to date, expanding on existing sections, such as right of reply, and elsewhere introducing new guidance, notably on artificial intelligence – a burgeoning subject on which almost 400 articles have been published by the Guardian and Observer this year alone.
While preceding versions have always applied to the Guardian’s publishing across the world, this one – which would have come sooner but for the Covid-19 pandemic – could reasonably be seen as the organisation’s first global code. Guardian Australia, which launched in 2013, was not yet in existence when the code was last revised, and senior editors across Guardian News & Media’s (GNM) operations there and in the UK and at Guardian US (which together now serve readers in 189 countries) have been consulted on the code’s content.
The introduction states: “The purpose of this document is to set out in a clear and transparent way the principles, values and standards that drive Guardian and Observer journalism, and by which GNM expects all journalists and contributors to abide. Above all, our aim is to protect and foster the bond of trust between the organisation and its audience, and thereby to protect the integrity of GNM and its journalism. The standards in this code apply globally to all GNM journalists, to all our practices, and to all published GNM journalism.”
For ease, and reflecting internal parlance, I am referring to the whole document here as “the code”, but in fact it comes in three parts: the GNM editorial code of practice; a wider set of supplementary guidelines; and internal guidance covering legal matters and professional conduct.
The first section substantially mirrors the Editors’ Code of Practice followed by the majority of national and regional newspapers in the UK that are members of the UK press regulator, Ipso, and where GNM’s wording differs this is clearly marked. In the section on children, for example, a child is defined as 17 and under (rather than 16), in line with the UN convention on the rights of the child.
GNM newspapers, which were members of Ipso’s forerunner, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), chose not to join the new regulator in 2014, but the Editors’ Code of Practice, the rulebook for both bodies, has itself been developed over 30-plus years and received input from Guardian and Observer editors in the first two decades.
As such, it has continued as the foundation of standards here, and adherence to its 16 clauses has long formed part of staff journalists’ contract of employment, with freelancers also expected to observe its rules. Covering such aspects as accuracy, privacy, discrimination and intrusion into grief and shock, its clauses provide the core tenets – and the ones under which a formal complaint can be made to the readers’ editor and, for those dissatisfied with my decision, onward to the Scott Trust’s external review panel.
Until today, however, that industry code has sat as an appendix to the document, reflecting a time when there was a necessary distinction between a code administered by the then PCC and GNM’s wider-ranging editorial guidelines. This anachronism is now gone, and in what I am sure will assist readers as much as journalists, the successor GNM editorial code of practice is placed coherently at the top.
The nine pages of editorial guidelines that follow are more than advice on how to comply with the core code; to a significant extent they go beyond it, reflecting the Guardian’s own compact with readers about how it aims to conduct its journalism. Many of the entries in this section have been informed by feedback from readers, and those who have been written about, over the years.
This latest version introduces advice on reporting of major incidents, handling of distressing content and treatment of interviewees, among others; it also expands, for example, on use of language, which was previously focused on profanity and now addresses sensitive language more generally. In the professional conduct section, there is a new passage on source care and protection, including use of electronic devices.
Much has changed since 2011 – at the Guardian, in the way society shares information and opinions, and in the world at large. The updates reflect this. But as “the embodiment of the Guardian’s values”, which is how the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, described the code in an email to staff today, the standards by which journalists agree to be held accountable, while geared (as far as possible) to the modern environment, seek to maintain something immutable: trust.
The rules themselves may not prove perfect or sufficient for every circumstance on which a journalist or reader consults them. But in the absence of specific advice it is worth noting that all versions of the code since 2002 have started with the same words from the former editor CP Scott’s 1921 centenary essay: “A newspaper[’s] … primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted.”
Elisabeth Ribbans is GNM’s global readers’ editor guardian.readers@theguardian.com
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
