Codes of ethics from the pubmediaverse

National or association-level policies

The NPR Ethics Handbook: 72 pages of thoughtful, social media- and digital-aware guidance for dealing with the ethical  issues of public media journalism.  18 months in the making, it provides a newly-poured foundation for editorial and ethical decision-making. (I downloaded it to my iPad and am slowly making my way through it.) — February 2012

Local Public Media Organizations Code of Editorial Integrity: A set of guidelines published out of the Editorial Integrity for Public Media Integrity project.  The 18-page report seeks to create a code of ethics endorsed and applied across the public broadcasting system.  The project is a joint initiative of the Affinity Group Coalition and the Station Resource Group, with support provided by the National Educational Telecommunications Association.  — April 2012 

PBS Editorial Standards and Policies Guide: 11-page guide explores how PBS relates to PBS stations, and a range of ethical issues.  One notable item is a section on substance over technique:

Advances in production technology carry with them the possibility that technique may overwhelm substance, distorting the information, making it technically inaccessible or distracting the public’s attention from its central thrust. Neither people nor ideas ought to be victimized by technical trickery. PBS will reject content that, in its judgment, disserves the viewer or its subject matter by inappropriately pursuing technique at the expense of substance.

— June 2011

Independence and Integrity: A guide focused on public radio journalism, created for CPB in 1995 and updated in 2004.  Downloads of both the original and updated versions are on the CPB site. — 1995, updated 2004

“Get an Edit”: A brief ethics code from Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI) — date unknown


Station policies

North Carolina Public Radio: WUNC’s 15-page Ethics policy. — January 2010

And now, the motherlode of ethics policies from across the system, brought to you by the Public Media Integrity project: http://pmintegrity.org/pm_docs/