Best *written* source for journalism ethics?

As part of the case I'm building against my former employer, I'm arguing that his openly flouting journalism ethics was a matter of disagreement with editorial judgment instead of his accusation of gross misconduct.

The thing is, I want something solid *in writing* that states advertising shouldn't dictate to editorial. Something in writing that says journalists shouldn't cover stories or not cover stories based on who's spending advertising dollars.

I'm sure there are people out there who understand that principle without being journalists, but I'd rather assume the administrative law person isn't going to have a clue about this and beat him or her over the head with evidence.

 

There are several ethical guides out there. I've always found the SPJ one to be most useful. For your situation you want to read the "Act Independently" section.

http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

 

Additional resources.

Project for Excellence in Journalism's collection of ethics links (goes to about 20 different codes and a handful of other related sites)
http://www.journalism.org/resources/ethics_codes

IU's J-school ethics case studies have some news-advertising conflicts:
http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/ethics/

 

THANK YOU!

 

Another thing I'd like to look at is deciding what content goes in (college vs. high school or little league sports). Is there something in those guides that I can point to for that?

 

There might be journal articles or text books that talk about balance of coverage or news judgement, but I doubt there is anything that specifically talks about college vs. high school or little league coverage.