I. Introduction This master’s thesis represents study of female newspaper and magazine editors in Azerbaijan based on Western and Soviet definitions of journalism with explanation of local national features of this p

III.2.1 Journalism ethics

An interest in editors’ adherence to ethical standards of journalism has been the corner stone of our previous inquiry in 2008. Goal of the 2011 research is to follow beyond the gender line where we stopped in our previous research and investigate what are ethical attitudes of female editors in Azerbaijan. Engaging the analysis in this subchapter we well look for the answers on two of our research questions: What are the stances of female editors towards journalistic professional organizations and how do the female editors perceive ethical self-regulation in journalism?

Following the same path like their male colleagues female editors state that they consider professional ethics important and at the same time fail to provide sound definition of the term. Editor-in-chief of semi-independent newspaper S.S. managed to sum up in a small paragraph definition of journalism ethics given by N.M., S.X. and R.A.:

In general, ethical norms require journalist to respect thoughts of others, do not corrupt facts, evade bias reporting, provide coverage to other side in certain types of stories, and relay information without partisanship.

Many of the old-school editors like for example F.X. instead of answering directly what they consider to be professional ethics of journalism look for the answer in their career experience in times of Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.

Back in those times, journalism faculty of the Baku State University (Azerbaijan State University back then) had an ethics course. After the independence, instead of adding teaching hours to this course, many state-funded universities abolished this course from their program completely. Ethics and esthetics course was very important, it taught person how to behave and interact with others. My ethics teacher Tariel Gasimov was really great teacher. He could give so much by teaching it again at some university but he can’t since now universities deem that course unnecessary even it had nothing to do with Marxist ideology or History of the party³⁸. Everyone [E.V. journalist] carries some ethics inside, some culture, family and school education. That sums up and gives some norms of behavior. But there are also some people in this profession that did not study or received education incompatible with this profession. They neither can build working relationship with people nor write normal sentences.

M.H. editor of pro-government newspaper owned by the State oil company of Azerbaijan Republic linked recent journalist beatings and arrests to their faulting journalistic ethics and explained what draws her to that conclusion.

Recently very often we hear reports that a journalist has been beaten. It means that he misbehaved that caused him to be beaten. To be a journalist is a high ranking job. You need to gain people’s trust by writing according to evidences and excluding from your writings false statements, slander, cursing words and etc. It means to write only according to evidences collected and not upon your own guesses. I always kept all documents, Xeroxed copies, etc. until my story belonged to archive.

With this formulation partially correlates answer of A.S. editor-in-chief of semi-independent newspaper. However, longing for neutral position A.S. takes M.H’s argument farther and adds missing part to it.

The fault why ethical standards are not being upheld lies first of all on journalists and secondly on some officials and their lack of restraint. For example, a journalist calls press office and requests information. Press service does not provide him information based on true facts or tells him to call later and then ignores his calls. Press services in Azerbaijan, with few exceptions, do not work with media. On the other hand, journalist left with no truthful information at hand, writes his story putting his own thoughts mixed with guesses and personal biases and labeling it “reliable source”. Inept official information channels cause failure of journalistic ethics.

Completing spectrum of thoughts on journalistic ethics is the editor of semi-independent newspaper N.Y.. Even though in our research N.Y. participated as an editor of politically not affiliated newspaper her previous work place in the oppositional flagship newspaper “Yeni Musavat” left deep imprints in her judgments causing her to absolve journalists and place all the blame on political elite of Azerbaijan.

I will again speak of the authorities. It is the harsh atmosphere that they have created in the society, in business, media, medicine or education that makes it [E.V. ethics] impossible. Since they selected ruthless, inhuman form of ruling it affects all other relations inside the country. Why Azerbaijani society does not reprobate an ill-bred article in a newspaper that I do not want to name here? They do not reprobate because this lack of ethics is everywhere: in official’s cabinet, in doctor’s cabinet, in teacher’s classroom. Go anywhere you want and you will find it since everything comes down to that ruthless governing.

Thus, the question of what is journalistic ethics remains open for interpretation. Our research population, with few exceptions among semi-independent newspaper editors, presented possession of intuitive rather than categorized knowledge of journalistic ethics. Against this conflicting and sometimes uneven knowledge it is worthy to point out, that the vague definition of ethical standards by female journalists may originate in male domination of Azerbaijani press organizations that codify ethical standards.

Since most of the selected female editors received their journalistic education in the Soviet Union they continue to practice the style of journalism that they have been taught and are familiar with: enlightening and educating reader while evading substantial criticism of the political regime. As a result these specialists are viewed by elites as valuable assets and occupy editor offices in government and pro-government oriented newspapers as well as are in charge of non-political magazines with scientific or educative orientation. An exception to the rule is N.M. who with her Soviet journalistic education and 41 years of experience in media leads independent regional newspaper Gancabasar.
Given background tensions between ruling elite and opposition it is not perhaps a surprise to observe that female editors replicated that polarity in their attitudes. Absence of oppositional female editor³⁹ as a category allows us to argue that females are excluded from editorial staff in politically instrumentilized oppositional newspapers. The above mentioned newspapers, as we found out in 2008 research selected as their policy - ethics of truth or everything goes as it is but are prone to violation of professional ethics in case if it is benefiting affiliating political party. On the other hand, female editors of pro-government orientation run their newspapers/magazines with adherence to Soviet journalistic ethics but in comparison to male colleagues evade barraging opposition in a smear campaigns and rather seclude to informing about good deeds of the authorities.
Female editors of independent and semi-independent newspapers in comparison to their male colleagues from the same camp incline more towards ethical values of pro-government female editors while balancing between policies and paying attention to outputs of their media products and investing considerable amount of thought to neutrality and balance.

Thus, Azerbaijani editors