NEW YORK - The Society of Professional Journalists has drafted its first update to the code of ethics in 12 years, directly confronting the rise of generative AI and a fractured media landscape. The 967-word draft, which will be voted on in October, aims to provide a voluntary ethical guide for the growing ranks of independent creator journalists as public trust in the media continues to erode.
"This is the way to protect democracy. This is to protect society," said Dan Axelrod, chair of the SPJ ethics committee. "There but for the grace of God goes a society without journalists."
The revision process, which involved months of virtual meetings and an in-person session in Indianapolis, marks only the sixth update in the code's century-long history. Committee vice chair Chris Roberts, a journalism professor at the University of Alabama, described "a lot of smithing of the words" and acknowledged that "passions definitely got heated," though he added, "Well, there were no fistfights."
AI and the buck that stops with journalists
The rapid emergence of generative AI drove much of the revision. Roberts said the committee was "thinking about artificial intelligence and how it's used and sometimes misused by news organizations, as they confront that new technology that saves them money, but also causes a lot of trouble if it's not used effectively and ethically."
Rather than name specific technologies that may become obsolete, the draft addresses tools broadly. A new line states: "Remember that speed, technology or medium do not excuse inaccuracy or unfairness. Journalists are ethically responsible for their work, regardless of tools and technologies used." Roberts put it plainly: "We don't want people using the excuse of a technology to say that they couldn't produce things ethically and transparently."
Understanding the technology behind these ethical concerns is increasingly part of a journalist's toolkit. For those working with these tools, courses on generative AI and LLMs can provide the technical grounding to evaluate when and how such systems introduce errors or bias into reporting.
Who gets a voice in coverage
One of the most debated changes replaces the phrase "Give voice to the voiceless" with a call to "counter the unfair marginalization of those with less power." The original wording, committee members argued, assumed certain groups inherently lacked a voice rather than acknowledging that mainstream outlets often ignore them.
"It's not that they don't have a voice. It's that too often mainstream news outlets don't pay attention to it or don't even know that it exists," said committee member Eric Deggans, NPR's critic-at-large and a media ethics professor at Washington and Lee University. The new language pushes journalists to actively include marginalized groups "when it's relevant, particularly when it builds the accuracy of the story."
The draft also addresses verification standards, misinformation, crime reporting, and fabricated images. The four core principles remain unchanged: Seek Truth and Report It, Minimize Harm, Act Independently, and Be Accountable and Transparent.
An industry no longer defined by newsrooms
The update responds to structural shifts in who produces journalism. A Pew study cited in the committee's report shows that one-third of journalists were freelance or self-employed in 2023. The SPJ wants the code to serve creator journalists, citizen reporters, and influencers alongside traditional staffers.
The report also flags "people, organizations and private investors without journalism backgrounds, who are buying or opening news properties, affecting news coverage, influencing editorial decisions and pushing personal agendas." The four principles, Roberts said, "should be standards, regardless of whether you call yourself a journalist, or the type of platform for which you work."
Deggans wishes more of those owners would read the code. "Too often they're pressuring their employees to do things that are unethical, and the employee has to figure out a way to preserve their journalism ethics and also give the employer what they want," he said.
Why this matters for writers
The SPJ code has long served as a starting point for countries without a history of free press to establish journalistic norms. For working writers, the draft's stance on AI is the immediate takeaway: the journalist, not the tool, bears ethical responsibility for accuracy and fairness. The code offers no loophole that lets a language model's output excuse a failure of verification. Writers who use AI in any part of their workflow-research, summarization, image generation-should treat the final product as entirely their own work, subject to the same standards as manually reported copy. For those navigating this shift, AI for writers courses can help build workflows that keep ethical obligations front and center.
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