Abstract
A Q-analysis of 13 motives for ethical decision-making by 17 professional journalists and 49 mass communications students showed that most were “mainstream” ethicists whose ethical concerns centered on credibility, their personal sense of morality, the public's need to know, and the standards of their field and their employer. A small number of respondents in each of the two samples seemed motivated by knowledge as power and were mildly unconcerned about knowledge of ethics. They were willing to use their work in a punitive way.
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