Virtue ethics as a way forward

Links between commerce and journalism have existed since William Caxton introduced the printing press to England. What is different today is the massive scale of these connections, and the corresponding intensity of the pressures on journalism’s greatest traditions and most noble aspirations. These pressures are especially acute in the current global economic climate, which, in conjunction with the challenge from new media, is destroying the business model which served the old media so well for so long. As the drive for profi t becomes the drive to survive, the currents which would reduce news to just another commercial product have become a fl ood which, increasingly, seems impossible to resist. How to respond to these currents and how to minimise their ethical impact are questions which have yet to be answered.