Ethics Code Awareness, Usefulness and Professionalism of Malaysian Journalists

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to explore: a) how Malaysian journalists with idealistic and relativistic orientations perceive their ethical codes, the code’s usefulness and their professionalism? and b) is there any significant difference amongst Malaysian journalists from different language dailies and medium of education in terms of their idealism and relativism? Data was collected from 145 journalists from different dailies in Ipoh and Penang, within Peninsular Malaysia using “convenience” sampling. A total of 128 responses (88.3% return rate) were received. Malaysian journalists, who scored higher in idealism and lower in relativism, were more inclined to adhere to their codes of ethics compared to their counterparts, who were higher in relativism and lower in idealism. In addition, it was found that respondents’ profile such as type of language daily and journalists’ medium of education had no impact on journalists’ ethical judgments.