Journalistic ethics require humility and openness.

BHG - In the era of information explosion, when everyone can become a "news messenger" through social networks, the role and responsibility of professional journalists are being scrutinized even more closely. Amidst the myriad of pressures from readers, editorial offices, and social networks, one of the core values that helps journalists maintain their professional qualities and qualities is journalistic ethics.

Among those ethical standards, modesty and a spirit of inquiry play a key role.

Modesty is not weakness, but a limited understanding of oneself. A modest journalist is someone who is always aware that personal perspectives are never the whole truth, the information they collect always needs to be compared, verified and carefully considered before being included in the content of the article to bring to readers. Therefore, modesty in thinking and behavior helps journalists always remind themselves to be careful in handling information. A sharp journalist, but if lacking modesty, can easily fall into personal ego, leading to abusing their position to impose personal views instead of honestly reflecting an issue or event that happens in life. On the contrary, modesty helps them stay alert to listen, learn, accept their own imperfections and always strive to improve their skills and professional ethics.

Ha Giang Newspaper reporters recorded and interviewed leaders of the Provincial Military Command on the occasion of the Lunar New Year 2025.

The spirit of learning is not only learning to write better, but also learning to understand people, understand life, to look at things from many angles and convey information in a more fair and humane way. In an era when the public can comment, share and even criticize right under each article, an attitude of learning helps journalists not fall into the feeling of being laughed at or self-conscious, but instead is an opportunity to better understand readers, identify shortcomings in the way of expressing or approaching the issue, thereby learning from experience, improving the quality of content and expression of each journalistic work. A good journalist is not someone who is never wrong, but someone who knows how to admit mistakes, correct them and grow from those mistakes. The spirit of learning helps journalists stay sober in the face of praise and brave in the face of criticism.

Journalism – Journalists are professional news reporters; the specific task of a journalist is to search for, verify, evaluate and provide information about all new events and issues that the public needs to know every day, every hour, even every minute. Journalists work hard under the stressful pressure of the job. They have to travel a lot, constantly "run" after new events, so they often have rich knowledge, wide and diverse social relationships. However, that also sometimes leads to professional subjectivity, making unnecessary mistakes. As my former colleague, Journalist Nguyen Hung once said: "Sometimes journalists know a lot but know nothing". It is true, we travel a lot, learn a lot, "meddle" in everything, but to truly understand thoroughly the issues and fields we write about is not easy. For example, my colleague from the lowlands moved to work locally. Due to his lack of language proficiency and unclear pronunciation of the common language of ethnic minorities in remote areas, he recorded the wrong names of people and village places during the conversation and interview, causing readers to misunderstand, hurting the person mentioned and affecting the reputation of the press agency. Worse, a young journalist also from the lowlands came to work in the province and mistakenly recorded and converted Lung Thau commune, an inland commune of Dong Van district, into a border commune. This not only distorted information but also affected public awareness of the geographical location, socio -economic conditions and related policies... These errors often stem from a lack of information verification, subjectivity in recording or negligence in editing. In the context of rapid information dissemination like today, a wrong detail can be widely spread, causing misunderstandings that are not easy to overcome. Therefore, journalists, especially young journalists with little experience, need to practice being careful, carefully verifying each name and place name, need to have a spirit of seeking to improve knowledge, understanding and constantly learn from senior colleagues to gradually improve themselves and become more confident in writing through each article.

Modesty and openness to learning must become the core values of every journalist, from the editorial board, department heads to each reporter, editor, and technician. Especially in the digital age where fake news and information manipulation can overwhelm the truth, journalists must be people who maintain their professional integrity. To do that, journalists need to change the way information is told in an honest, fair, and responsible manner. We need to be humble to understand that we do not know everything and open to learning to constantly strive for accuracy, bringing readers the most multi-dimensional and authentic view in each of our journalistic works.

Article and photos: MINH KHAI

Source: https://baohagiang.vn/xa-hoi/202506/dao-duc-nghe-bao-doi-hoi-su-khiem-ton-va-cau-thi-7d96ebe/