For a century, journalists have had a voluntary ethics code. Editors are giving it an AI-era reboot

For a century, journalists have had a voluntary ethics code. Editors are giving it an AI-era reboot 1 of 4 | White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, July 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) 2 of 4 | A journalist prepares for a stand-up as President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) 3 of 4 | Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov, center, speaks to journalists and supporters after a hearing on a lawsuit to bar the party from the upcoming parliamentary elections, at the Russia’s Supreme Court, in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov) 4 of 4 | Journalists and supporters of the Yabloko party listen to Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov, center, after a hearing on a lawsuit to bar the party from the upcoming parliamentary elections, at the Russia’s Supreme Court, in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov) 1 of 4 | White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, July 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) 1 of 4 White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, July 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share 2 of 4 | A journalist prepares for a stand-up as President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) 2 of 4 A journalist prepares for a stand-up as President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share 3 of 4 | Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov, center, speaks to journalists and supporters after a hearing on a lawsuit to bar the party from the upcoming parliamentary elections, at the Russia’s Supreme Court, in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov) 3 of 4 Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov, center, speaks to journalists and supporters after a hearing on a lawsuit to bar the party from the upcoming parliamentary elections, at the Russia’s Supreme Court, in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov) Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share 4 of 4 | Journalists and supporters of the Yabloko party listen to Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov, center, after a hearing on a lawsuit to bar the party from the upcoming parliamentary elections, at the Russia’s Supreme Court, in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov) 4 of 4 Journalists and supporters of the Yabloko party listen to Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov, center, after a hearing on a lawsuit to bar the party from the upcoming parliamentary elections, at the Russia’s Supreme Court, in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov) Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] NEW YORK (AP) — Walk into a corner of a newsroom somewhere and you can often find it affixed to a bulletin board, perhaps peeking out from behind the coffee pot: the Society of Professional Journalists’s Code of Ethics. It’s less than a thousand words, fitting neatly on a poster. But those words — organized around four key journalistic principles — are important enough, asserts Dan Axelrod, that they just might save our democracy.“I’m going to just say it,” says Axelrod, chairman of the SPJ Ethics Committee and former longtime Gannett business reporter. ”This is the way to protect democracy. This is to protect society. There but for the grace of God goes a society without journalists.”Axelrod is talking not only about the existence of the code but the need, every so often, to update it. It’s a laborious process, taking about a year and countless hours of meetings and feedback, virtual and in person. Yet as the media landscape seems to shift daily and new technologies emerge, SPJ has decided that the time is at hand — for the first time in 12 years, and only the sixth in the code’s century-long history. A conclave, of sorts, to update the codeThe seriousness of the undertaking brought the committee and other media ethics experts to Indianapolis in June, after lots of virtual meetings. Seems it wasn’t the most relaxing way to spend a weekend. “Passions definitely got heated,” Axelrod says.“Well, there were no fistfights,” quips his colleague, Chris Roberts, vice chairman of the committee and a journalism professor at the University of Alabama. He explains there was “a lot of smithing of the words.”