Peculiarities of “Unified News” Television Broadcasting: (Non)Adherence to Professional Standards, Language and Ethical Norms

Abstract

The article monitors the broadcasts of the joint telethon “United News” (1+1, Rada, STB and ICTV, Inter, My – Ukraina, and Suspilne) in terms of compliance with professional standards, language and ethical norms. The research material included news, live broadcasts, and guest studios. The analysis takes into account the specifics of wartime and its impact on compliance with standards. It was found that media professionals violate a standard on average every minute. Among the deviations from the standard of credibility, the following phenomena were recorded: generalized pseudo-references to sources of factual material, authorship of subjective opinions, quoting unverified information from the Internet, including social networks. The use of overly emotional and figurative statements, unauthorized subjective opinions, and vague quotes on the air indicate non-compliance with the standard of separating facts from opinions. It was established that the violations of the information accuracy standard are the discrepancy between the picture and text in the stories, as well as inadequate illustration of live broadcasts. The lack of answers to the main questions of the news, unclear designation of the archive in the background, incomplete introduction of studio guests or speakers in the synchronized newscasts indicate errors in the standard of completeness of information. Various types of violations of the standard of accessibility of information presentation include the use of lexemes that are not clear to the general public, difficult terms, jargon, abbreviations, borrowings, infographics, etc. Such anomalies occur when journalists mention concepts that are incomprehensible to the general audience without the appropriate background. It has been found that the standards of efficiency and balance of opinions and points of view are hardly violated in the telethon. The monitoring has shown that media professionals are prone to ethical anomalies. In the news, we come across non-compliance with the Code of Ethics of Ukrainian journalists, in particular, the dissemination of biased information or unfounded accusations. Violations of ethical norms are also evidenced by disparaging statements or foul language used on the air.