What is the purpose of a code of ethics for the press?

Journalism plays a crucial role in democratic societies, but the ability of journalists to perform that role is jeopardised by a profound crisis of trust in the profession. One response often employed by press councils is to refresh their code of ethics, but what purpose do such codes serve and can they make any difference to how journalists actually behave or relate to the public? Drawing on Jonathan Wolff’s idea of ‘engaged philosophy’, we outline the problems to which codes may be an answer and provide a taxonomy of the purposes they may then fulfil. We lay out four possible roles for codes and argue they can all make a worthwhile contribution to raising press standards and justifying higher levels of public trust. We substantiate our discussion by examining the codes of ethics of press councils in twelve European countries, along with the IMPRESS and IPSO codes in the UK, to determine which of these functions they are explicitly intended to serve. We conclude that there is scope to make greater use of codes to improve the ethical culture in newsrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]