Crypto Media Ethics: Experts Talk Transparency, Mass Adoption
• The Agenda podcast discusses crypto media ethics and the potential for journalists to be under pressure from their companies.
• Molly Jane Zuckerman, a crypto media veteran, shares her experience with ethics challenges in the industry and suggestions on how to integrate best practices.
• The Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers is working on a standards guidebook to help reporters and news agencies remain transparent.
The Ethics Challenge in Crypto Media
Crypto media has had its fair share of ethical challenges throughout the years. From Ponzi schemes, decentralized finance scams, nonfungible token rug pulls to questionable centralized exchange bookkeeping, these issues have put the discussion around ethics in the space front and center. It is important for objective, unbiased news reporting and transparency if the industry is to earn the trust of more people outside of it.
The Agenda Podcast Discussion
To discuss this further, Cointelegraph’s podcast The Agenda hosted Ray Salmond and Jonathan DeYoung as they sat down with crypto media vet Molly Jane Zuckerman. They discussed her experience with ethics challenges in the industry and her ideas on how to integrate best practices into the sector. When asked by Salmond about what needs fixing in crypto media specifically, Zuckerman suggested that drastic improvements in transparency are needed.
ACJR Standards Guidebook
As a result of this need for transparency, Zuckerman co-founded the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers (ACJR) which is currently working on a standards guidebook with the intention of providing guidance to reporters and news agencies alike when it comes to remaining ethical within their roles: “It is something I spend a lot of time thinking about…how do we make sure that people working in crypto have sort of a rule book to follow beyond just what their newsroom might tell you might tell them?”
Promoting Crypto Mass Adoption
The conversation also touched upon what role — if any — should journalists play in promoting crypto mass adoption through ethical journalism practices: “I think having trustworthy sources [for] information related to cryptocurrency can help bring more people into this space who maybe don’t know as much about it or are scared away due to all these scams going around,” said Zuckerman. “That would really help out everyone involved.”
Universal Code Of Ethics Needed?
Finally, they asked whether there should be some form of universal code of ethics when it comes to covering cryptocurrencies: “I think there definitely needs more education around proper journalistic practices,” Zuckerman concluded. “But I do think that having something published like an official code [of] conduct could go a long way towards helping people stay accountable.”