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Journal of Media Ethics
Exploring Questions of Media Morality
ISSN: 2373-6992 (Print) 2373-700X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hmme21
Ethics and Journalism in Central Asia: A
Comparative Study of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
Bahtiyar Kurambayev & Eric Freedman
To cite this article: Bahtiyar Kurambayev & Eric Freedman (2019): Ethics and Journalism in
Central Asia: A Comparative Study of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Journal
of Media Ethics, DOI: 10.1080/23736992.2019.1700119
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2019.1700119
Published online: 05 Dec 2019.
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Ethics and Journalism in Central Asia: A Comparative Study of
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
Bahtiyar Kurambayev
a
and Eric Freedman
b
a
Department of Media and Communications, College of Social Sciences, KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan;
b
Professor, Director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism Director of Capital News Service, Michigan
State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
ABSTRACT
Journalism faces a series of ethics crises, particularly in Central Asia because
journalism is marked by wide ethical misbehavior including lack of balance
and impartiality, using multiple fake names, selling and/or buying news,
bribing journalists and others. This study analyzes professional ethical
perspectives and practices of Central Asian journalists by examining and
comparing the four former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan Table 1. This study uses in-depth interviews
with 24 journalists to examine their ethical ideals in the profession and
how their ethical perspectives impact potential democracy. Its significance
lies in revealing the gravity of ethical misbehavior where journalists call
ethics a “Western luxury”and where public life was filled with falsehoods.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 21 March 2019
Accepted 28 November 2019
Journalists have an ethics code because they can do substantial public harm (Bertrand, 2002; Ward,
2010) if they fail to adhere to the highest professional values such as responsibility, accuracy,
impartiality, balance, truthfulness, and especially importantly, serving the public interest. Some of
the potential public harms include manipulating election coverage, sparking racial and inter-ethnic
tensions, sensationalizing or misrepresenting issues, and demonizing minority groups (Ward, 2010).
Biased reports may incite ethnic groups to attack each other (Ward, 2010, p. 159), or scandals may
emerge or be hidden as a result of violating professional ethics, even without violating the law
(Kepplinger & Viererbl, 2018). Although some people contend that journalistic ethics should not be
different than plumber ethics (as cited in Craft, 2017), journalism affects everyone in a society and is
considered among the most “socially and politically significant professions”(Dzur, 2008, p. 3). In
addition, journalists often have access to privileged resources (Radu, 2016). Therefore, journalists are
under regular scrutiny for ethical violations because of their pivotal role in providing information for
citizens and policymakers to make political and other critical decisions for society (Wu & Lambert,
2016). Furthermore, professional ethics are key in differentiating public relations and advertising
from journalism (Waisbord, 2013). As Ward (2010, p. 3) argues, the significance of renewed
attention to the issue comes as the profession faces a crisis of ethics that threatens to lower
professional standards, demean the honorable history of the news media, and question its future
as a democratizing agent in the public sphere. This is especially true in an era of disinformation and
fake news where ethical journalism should play a critical role to establish trust with the citizenry.
Although there is a vast amount of literature about ethics in journalism and in wider media
studies globally, this study is distinctive in a number of ways. First, it is conducted among journalists
for whom ethics is considered to be a “Western luxury”(Mould & Schuster, 1999, p. 218) and for
whom media’s traditional watchdog role is the least important (Kurambayev, Sheffer, & Stepaniuc,
2019). Second, there has been little discussion about journalism ethics in Central Asia, a region
CONTACT Bahtiyar Kurambayev b.kurambayev@kimep.kz KIMEP University, Almaty 050010, Kazakhstan
© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
JOURNAL OF MEDIA ETHICS
https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2019.1700119
where public life was “full of falsehood and lies”until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
(Roudakova, 2017, p. 9) and where journalists fabricated details in their writings (p. 41). Journalism
in these post-Soviet countries is now framed as “political prostitution”(Roudakova, p. 8) that can be
bought and sold because journalism is dominated by the logic of money and power, as in advertising,
propaganda, and public relations. Third, Central Asia is a difficult region for many researchers to
reach because governments may deport foreign scholars or deny them entry into the country. This is
one reason that little independent peer-reviewed research has been permitted (Freedman & Shafer,
2012). Although the U.S. and a wider Western context provide a rich source of scholarly works on
journalism ethics (Wasserman, 2017), there has been too little academic attention paid to non-
Western, authoritarian environments where press freedom is non-existent. Existing literature indi-
cates that comparative studies in journalism primarily focus on “the study of Western countries and
elite media, quantitative methods of analysis, and political aspects of journalism”(Hanusch & Vos,
2019, p. 1). So, this study aims to gain scholarly insights on an under-researched area and help
address an imbalance in ethics scholarship.
Thus, this study analyzes ethical perspectives in Central Asian journalism by examining the
practice or absence of ethics in journalism in four post-Soviet countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The study excludes the fifth Central Asian republic, Turkmenistan,
because all its media are controlled by the state (Freedman, Shafer, & Antonova, 2010) and does
not make even a pretense of press independence. This is the first comparative study of journalistic
ethics in the region, and its significance lies in revealing the gravity of ethical misbehavior in Central
Asian journalistic practice. It takes a pragmatic and applied approach rather than merely condemn-
ing or faulting the journalism community there. The authors ask the following questions:
RQ1: To what extent do Central Asian journalists tend to emphasize ethical ideals in the profession?
RQ2: How do their ethical perspectives impact potential democracy within the larger Asia region?
To answer these questions, the authors conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with
journalists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan; this comparative analysis was
intended to allow for a more in-depth understanding of journalism in the region from the classroom
to the newsroom.
Impediments to journalistic ethics
In general, acting in accord with professional ethics in journalism is associated with excellence
(Craft, 2017). This study builds on recent literature on journalism ethics undertaken globally. For
example, recent studies include ones about ethical challenges of algorithmic journalism (Dorr &
Hollnbuchner, 2017), news media organizational ethics (Luengo, Macia-Barber, & Requejo-Aleman,
2017), transparency and ethics in Russian journalism (Klyueva & Tsetsura, 2015), and journalists
with secondary employment in the field of public relations (Frohlich, Koch, & Obermaier, 2013).
There has been a study of multiple levels of analysis on ethics examining the individual level, the
Table 1. Notes: Uzbekistan currently does not have accepted code of ethics for journalists.
Country
Ethics Code
Name
Organization(s) that wrote the
codes URL
Date
accepted
Kazakhstan Code of Ethics
of Journalists
Union of Kazakhstan Journalists &
Club of Editors of Kazakhstan
https://www.zakon.kz/4748513-kodeks-jet
iki-zhurnalista-predlagajut.html
October 30,
2012
Kyrgyzstan Code of Ethics Media Complaints Committee (with
support of international donors)
http://medialaw.kg/samoregulirovaniya-smi/
eticheskij-kodeks-zhurnalista-kyrgyzstana/
December 8,
2007
Tajikistan Code of Ethics
of Journalists
Union of Journalists (with support
of international organizations)
http://medialaw.asia/document/-3616 May 14, 2009
2B. KURAMBAYEV AND E. FREEDMAN
organization level of newsrooms, and the societal level of media systems among journalists from 18
countries such as Indonesia, Uganda, Egypt, China, Bulgaria, and some in the developed world
(Plaisance, Skewes, & Hanitzsch, 2012). Single-country studies about developing and developed
counties have taken place in Taiwan (Wu & Lambert, 2016), China (Tsetsura, 2015), Cambodia
(Quinn, 2018), Kenya (Ireri, 2018), Malaysia (Wilson, 2018), and Tanzania (Kothari, 2018). Also,
there is growing literature on comparative studies of journalism ethics, including studies of China,
Hong Kong, and Taiwan (Lo, Chan, & Pan, 2005), India and China (Rao & Malik, 2018), and Latin
America (Joyce, Saldana, Weiss, & Alves, 2017).
Most journalists in the world seem to respect –or at least profess to respect –universal principles
of ethics and to avoid questionable methods of reporting (Hanitzsch, Hanusch, & Mellado et al.,
2011). There are codes that profess to apply universally, such as the Declaration of Principles on the
Conduct of Journalists from the International Federation of Journalists. Hossain and Aucoin
acknowledge, “The search for universal ethics among journalists has yet to receive general accep-
tance because previous attempts have sought a code of ethics to which all journalists around the
globe could agree,”while arguing that following the “principle of caring for others”could be “a
partial approach toward a universal ethic for journalists”(2018, p. 198). However, the principles and
specific components of ethical standards can differ in various socio-economic and political contexts,
and there has been criticism of the assertion of universality. As Wasserman writes, “…[T]he
practices, conditions, and value systems of specific countries –mostly in the Global North –are
taken unproblematically and often unreflexively to have universal applicability”(2017, p. 313). Even
so, we contend that certain professional rules should be the same everywhere, such as not falsifying
a piece of news, accepting financial advantages or other gifts from people wishing to secure or to stop
publication of a story, and inventing or fabricating news (Bertrand, 2002).
Journalism is susceptible to influence from external and internal factors, including religion, political
and economic situations, and news media organizational factors (Fortner & Fackler, 2018; Klyueva &
Tsetsura, 2015; Milojević& Krstić,2018). Tsetsura (2015)andHouandZhu(2012)citecultural
influences on media practices relevant to ethical journalism such as gift-giving cultures and personal
exchange of favors. Individual factors such as education, background and experience in the field, gender,
and other personal variables are also cited as having influence (Craig, 2010). The existing body of
knowledge strongly suggests a connection between a person’s economic condition and ethical compro-
mises that he or she is forced to make (Tsetsura, 2015). This is supported by the international index of
bribery, a ranking of almost 70 countries. Kruckeberg and Tsetsura (2003) write that accepting bribes for
news coverage prevails in most countries including China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and
Pakistan, along with some African countries. Many journalists and editors in Russia and Ukraine cite
poor salaries and unsatisfactory work conditions as justification for accepting cash and other payments
(Klyueva & Tsetsura, 2015). Similar practices have been identified in Estonia, Poland (Tsetsura, 2015),
and elsewhere. Financial difficulties also lead journalists to pursue secondary employment in public
relations even while they are aware of the conflicting roles of journalism and public relations (Frohlich
et al., 2013). Frohlich and her colleagues cite a study that says 40 percent of freelance journalists in
Germany are simultaneously involved in public relations. This is important to emphasize because public
relations and journalism fulfill different and even opposing functions in a society. Many other studies
concluded that journalists in the developing world think it is acceptable for journalists and editors to
accept free gifts, free meals, or free trips from news sources (Lo et al., 2005: Onyebadi & Alajmi, 2016;
Tsetsura, 2015). Tsetsura (2015) described several forms of paid news: First, when new organizations are
founded or when new products are released, journalists receive monetary or non-monetary gifts in
return for news stories. A second situation is when journalists write favorable in-depth stories about
organizations, and a third situation is when organizations buy regular columns in a newspaper.
JOURNAL OF MEDIA ETHICS 3
Overview of central Asian journalism
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan gained their independence in 1991 when the
Soviet Union collapsed. During the Soviet years, many constraints restricted the media from serving
the public interest because press freedom and public access to information were perceived as threats
to the leaders, including the regimes of Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin, from the Bolshevik era on to
the post-Communist and post-Soviet authoritarianism in contemporary Central Asia (Freedman,
2011). As an organ of the Communist Party, the press was clearly subordinate to it, and readers
understood that journalists were limited –by censorship and self-censorship –in what they could
actually say in public (Roudakova, 2017). In fact, Roudakova argues that “Soviet public life was full
of falsehoods and lies and that those lies were perpetuated out of collective timidity or convenience,
or both”(p. 9). Roudakova argues that Soviet journalists were in fact journalists in name only
because they were primarily engaged in propaganda work. She also notes that some journalistic
practices and attitudes were tolerated in Soviet journalism that would be strongly disapproved of by
Western journalists. For example: manufacturing citizens’comments and reactions to official events;
fabrication of details in descriptions of emotional states and qualities of characters; and use of direct
quotes reconstructed from memory (Roudakova, 2017,p.61–62). Another questionable practice
generally disapproved of under Western standards is what is known as kompromat (compromising
evidence). “Kompromat can be fabricated, mixing fact, opinion and fiction, journalists may be forced
to produce it, and it can be blocked from publication for an additional fee”(p. 100). Using multiple
fictitious names by journalists in Central Asia and post-Soviet Russia is another common practice.
“Pseudonyms are there in case someone does not like an article and orders a journalist fired. Then,
we can tell him that we fired that journalist, whereas we, in fact, simply ‘fired’the pseudonym,”as
Roudakova quotes one of the Russian journalists interviewed for her research (p. 141).
These four countries collectively have about 65–70 million people with about 5,700 active media
outlets, including more than 1,500 registered media outlets in Kyrgyzstan, more than 2,500 media
outlets in Kazakhstan, more than 650 media outlets in Tajikistan, and more than 1,000 in Uzbekistan
(IREX, 2017). A central ethics concern to journalism practice in the region is that traditional culture
permits plagiarism of news stories (IREX, 2015).The deputy minister of information, culture and
tourism of Kyrgyzstan, Ainura Temirbekova, was quoted as saying that most Kyrgyz TV stations
consist of one computer and several staff members only. Temirbekova also said that these TV
stations broadcast others’work (Kyrgyzstan Sputnik News, October 3, 2018). Another widespread
problem in the region, as in most of the developing world, is that journalists devote little or no time
to verify information before publishing. For example, a Western-educated Kyrgyz journalist wanted
to test whether journalists do verify facts before publishing stories. Bektur Iskander created a fake
press release from a fictitious organization holding a fictitious event featuring an invented foreign
expert (IREX, 2012, p. 299). He created a logo for the fictitious organization and distributed the press
release to all news agencies in Kyrgyzstan. The same day, news agencies published it in full, including
the highly regarded AKIpress News Agency. Then, Iskander organized a public discussion about how
the news outlets fail to verify information before publishing. In an example from Kazakhstan, a story
published in Informbyuro reported that a woman tried to drown her granddaughter; however, it was
later explained that, to the contrary, the woman saved her granddaughter. In Tajikistan, journalists
reported that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had contacted Beg Zuhurov, the head of
Communication Services of Tajikistan, apparently to discuss the government’s blocking of the
Facebook
1
website. The story was picked up by many local news outlets, but it appeared that it
was a prank call. A television channel in Uzbekistan generated anger from the public when its
journalists exposed public displays of affection among young couples in 2018. Uzbek journalists were
chasing and confronting young couples with a camera intending to publicly shame them (British
Broadcasting Corporation 2018). A recent confession by an Uzbek journalist highlights the
1
Facebook and other social networking sites are regularly blocked in Tajikistan.
4B. KURAMBAYEV AND E. FREEDMAN
widespread problem of ethics in the region: Mavjuda Mirzayeva, a correspondent for the
“Uzbekistan 24”TV channel, admitted in an 2018 interview given to the UzNews website that
Uzbek journalists lie to viewers. She said that if an investor [in Uzbekistan] says during a TV channel
interview that “he faces problems and the problems are being reviewed/solved,”then it is translated
on TV as saying, ‘I am delighted with the ongoing reforms in Uzbekistan’” (UzNews, 2018, para. 4).
Journalists in the region commonly sell the “news”and openly accept bribes for writing news
stories (Kurambayev, 2017), and journalists consider it acceptable to receive gifts and honoraria for
their work from the subjects of their articles. Discussing Tajikistan, IREX (2016) reported that
journalists require fees from their customers in the form of money or food for photographs or
reporting. Other questionable practices include using multiple fake names for the same author;
selling and/or buying news; bribing journalists; publishing anything and everything without verifica-
tion; plagiarizing others’work; and putting one’s own name on stories copy-pasted from elsewhere.
News outlets in the region also exploit journalists by failing to pay them. Beyond individual
journalists, media outlets are also involved in practicing unethical journalism. Most news outlets
hire journalists “off the book”to avoid paying taxes. Such ethically questionable professional
behavior is not uncommon in the developing world (Duodo, 2018; Onyebadi & Alajmi, 2016;
Oshunkeye, 2011; Quinn, 2018; Rao & Malik, 2018; Tsetsura, 2015).
Although newsroom socialization is often the most powerful factor influencing journalists’ethical
decision-making (Weaver, Beam, Brownlee, Voakes, & Wilhoit, 2007), Du and Thornburg (2011)
argue that there is a significant gap in what students learn in classrooms and what they do as
journalists in the newsroom. Current journalism education systems in Central Asia originate from
the Soviet style of teaching, and such a curriculum is still largely maintained (Skochilo, Toralieva,
Freedman, & Shafer, 2013). Many journalism faculty members are historians, linguists, or from other
academic disciplines (Toralieva, 2014). The importance of honoring professional ethics code arises
because media outlets have various entities to which they must be loyal (Tan, 2007). Although these
political, economic and social factors, as well as the quality of professional journalism training,
influence ethical decision-making by news outlets and journalists in Central Asia and elsewhere, this
study focuses on individual decision-making.
One of the major debates involving ethical failures of journalism in Central Asia occurred in
October 2013. A young female Kyrgyz TV presenter, Nazira Aytbekova, was kidnapped by a group of
men. Aytbekova was taken to a wasteland outside the capital, Bishkek. The men forced her to
partially undress and forced her to dance by threatening to rape and kill her. One man recorded the
entire process on camera. Then the men revealed themselves as reporters for the local “Super Info”
newspaper, which runs a practical jokes column. This incident attracted worldwide news coverage,
including by the British Broadcast Corporation. Russia’s Rossiya 1 popular TV prime-time talk show
program Pryamoi Efir (“Live Reporting”) devoted a 35-minute discussion to it. It also was covered
globally, including in Canada, India, New Zealand, and the United States. This case and many
similar ethical misbehavior practices, coupled with new challenges such as the spread of disinforma-
tion and fake news, have renewed attention on ethics in journalism and heightened the urgent need
to examine the situation in Central Asia, a region with a wide range of ethical misbehavior.
Although each country in the study except Uzbekistan has an ethic codes developed with
assistance of international journalism trainers and international media organizations, optimism in
honoring these professional codes has not translated into reality. The increasing interconnectedness
among nations also means that journalists’work reaches transnational audiences more often and at
faster rates, potentially influencing the lives of those across the globe in unprecedented ways (de
Macedo Higgins Joyce et al., 2017). Ward (2010) argues journalism ethics should become globally
minded because the news media and the practice of journalism are increasingly global (p. 159) and
journalism ethics should not stop at the border of one’s own country. Practically all ethics codes
around the world outline commonly accepted core principles such as truth/accuracy, independence,
fairness, impartiality, doing no harm, and accountability. But reasons vary for not honoring those
principles.
JOURNAL OF MEDIA ETHICS 5
Theoretical framework
Chari (2017) argues that global media ethics is still underdeveloped and there is no consensus on what it
is, what it should be, or how it can be developed. That is partly because what is right or wrong depends on
the cultural and political context in which journalism is practiced. Hamada (2016)arguesthatnoneofthe
philosophical approaches theorizing global ethics reflects a balance between what is local and global.
Therefore, it is difficult to define what ethical or unethical behavior is because ethics is about con-
tinuously making judgments about the actions of others and of oneself (Lambek, 2000), and the criteria
for judgment also changes continuously (Roudakova, 2017). Christians (2010) argues that universal
principles should guide global media ethics –in particular “a universal ethics of humanity, dignity, and
truth,”three principles that bind humanity (p. 6). Given the plethora of debates about theoretical
approaches to explain individual journalists’and wider media outlets’behavior, the normative theory
of social responsibility is best suited to explain both individual journalists’professional and media
organizational behavior. As originally suggested by Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm in 1956, the theory
emphasizes the need for an independent media that scrutinizes other social institutions and provides
objective, accurate news reports. The theory also calls for becoming the voice of all the people, not just
elite groups or groups that had dominated national, regional, or local culture in the past (Baran & Davis,
2015, p. 73). While post-Soviet journalists in the region have not adopted the social-responsibility
approach, this study focuses on social responsibility because it is relevant in analyzing how journalism
serves public interests rather than private interests at the individual and/or media organization level.
Method
To address our statement of the issue, the study qualitatively analyzed data from in-depth, semi-
structured interviews with 24 working journalists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan. Nine journalists from Kazakhstan, nine journalists from Kyrgyzstan, three journalists
from Tajikistan, and three journalists from Uzbekistan were interviewed.
To find interviewees, the authors contacted several journalists based on prior familiarity with
them and sought their referrals to colleagues. They also posted requests on social media accounts
(including Facebook) and social media groups for journalists and journalism professors. Overall, the
study employed purposive, convenience, and snowball sampling. Recruitment also took place during
events where journalists gathered, such as trainings and seminars. The working journalists in this
study included full-time reporters, journalists, correspondents, and editors of private, independent,
and state-owned news outlets, as well as local journalists for international news outlets such as Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Some participants worked
for multiple media outlets. This sample includes seventeen women and seven men, with experience
in the profession from at least two years to 30 years. The journalists primarily work in capital or
major cities in their respective countries.
Interviews ranged from 20 to 120 minutes and were conducted from August 23, 2018, through
January 31, 2019. Most interviews took place at the respondents’workplace or at a neutral location
such as a café; several Skype interviews also took place.
The interviews were held in Russian, which is one of the two official languages of these countries.
Consent was sought from participants, and they were told they could drop out of the study at any
moment. The researchers posed a series of open-ended questions, beginning with routine questions
about their experiences in journalism and then moving to their perception of journalistic ethics,
barriers to good journalism practice, and their ethical ideals for the profession. Interviews were
recorded and analyzed for recurring themes. Participants’names are not used.
Although interviewing as a research method may have drawbacks, including that “fewer people
are willing …because they [people] are so burdened by requests for interviews that they are much
more selective in their choices of which interviews to grant”(Fontana & Frey, 2005, p. 699), this
study utilized in-depth interviews because of scholarly interest in understanding the experience of
6B. KURAMBAYEV AND E. FREEDMAN
Central Asian journalists and the meaning they make of that experience. Journalists’“behavior
becomes meaningful and understandable when placed in the context of their lives and the lives of
those around them”(Seidman, 2006, p. 16). Although 24 respondents account for a small sample of
Central Asian journalists, a small number of cases may facilitate scholars’close association with the
subjects through such in-depth interviewing, as Crouch and McKenzie (2006) observe. “By defini-
tion, these interviews target the respondents’perceptions and feelings rather than the social condi-
tions surrounding those experiences: at least, the collection of the interview material and its
interpretation and analysis are not primarily directed toward establishing ‘objective facts’concerning
these conditions”(p. 485).
Results
Central Asian journalists offer many rationales for professional misbehavior, such as a lack of
freedom of expression, “starvation pay”(Mould & Schuster, 1999, p. 204), restricted access to
information, lack of proper university training, lack of revenue for their media outlets, and others.
Three main themes surface in this study’s data:
●“Full of Falsehood,”which asserts that Central Asian societies are full of falsehood, that
journalists lie to readers and viewers, that governments lie to journalists and the public, and
that journalists lie to potential advertisers;
●“Luxury Profession,”which focuses on how journalists profit from extortion and bribery to
report and/or not to report on certain individuals and certain topics; and
●“Restricted Access to Information Leads to Unethical Practice,”which examines how journal-
ists violate ethical rules to gain access to information restricted by governments and officials.
Theme: ‘full of falsehood’
The most common and critical theme among journalists was that journalism in the region is full of
falsehoods. All journalists (except one from Kyrgyzstan) reported that journalists consciously and
deliberately lie to readers and viewers, as governments and politicians do to journalists, and as
journalists do to advertisers. This is consistent with what media scholar Roudakova described about
Soviet and modern Russian journalism by quoting journalists as saying that “politicians are fucking
with us [journalists], we are fucking with the readers, and the readers do not give a fuck about what
we do”(Roudakova, 2017, p. 141).
One journalist from Kyrgyzstan who had previously worked for the government press service
described his experience as follows: “There were moments when I felt shameful for doing or not
doing in certain ways in my journalistic career. But this was the experience I had to go through as
a journalist to better understand how to act.”He added, “I thought I was doing the right thing but
I was not. Our management would say that we are on the right track and that we are doing the right
thing. They would also say that we need to protect our ideals through such information campaigns.
So, during these 13 years, it was a huge experience for me.”
A journalist from Kazakhstan said:
One time our potential advertiser wanted to verify the circulation number of our newspaper unexpectedly. Just
before they arrived at the printing house, our manager arranged that the printing house should show them our
newspaper on top and put some other newspapers in between to make it appear that we have a higher
circulation number. But the client did not check every single newspaper. This is how we were able to tell
them that our newspaper circulation is 10 times higher than the actual figure.
A Kazakh journalist noted something similar. She said her television station has a media analyst who
analyzes all the program ratings. According to the respondent, the analyst structures the ratings
JOURNAL OF MEDIA ETHICS 7
based on what benefits the channel. Ratings are done weekly, monthly, and quarterly. For example, if
the station gets good ratings one week, that particular week’s rating will be picked up for public
reporting. He does not pick months or quarters to show when the station does not get a good rating
because it would be bad for the channel. The journalist called it manipulation of ratings. “He may
choose …lower-rated TV channels/programs to compare with …and to show that our TV channel/
program is better. But he would skip those TV programs/channels better than ours for comparison
because we would look bad in comparison to those higher-rated channels.”
Journalists also lie to people to get interviews or information. For example, a Kyrgyz journalist
said:
Journalists pretended that my friend’s interview would be published in a regular section, but ended up being
published in a completely yellowish section of the media. It was Limon.kg. The journalists from there said that
it would be a regular interview, but they ended up publishing in a section where Kyrgyz women discuss whom
they would like to get married to. My friend is a professional model. If she knew that this would be published in
such a yellowish section, she would not agree to the interview. In such cases, journalists pretend and lie to get
information. When you call the editorial office demanding that it delete the interview, then they refuse. They
say …you agreed to an interview. Then they would end up doing something else with the interview.
Our respondents noted that many fabrications are spread everywhere during elections. One journal-
ist from Kyrgyzstan said: “When we have elections, made-up stories appear frequently about
opponents to create scandals. Journalists fabricate about non-existent love affairs of certain politi-
cians, including photos using Photoshop software.”
One Kazakh journalist noted that it is not only journalists who lie to readers and audience
members. It happens more at the management level. For example, she suggested a hypothetical “city
X.”The city has a press service. There is a new monument in city X and people are not happy about
it. The city press service has an army of its own journalists, a pool of journalists who work for the
city. These journalists include editorial offices, journalists’groups, and bloggers. The city’s press
service sends a message telling all of them to write or produce something specific. In such situations,
people think journalists lie and exaggerate. In reality, it is not the journalists’decision but the agenda
that certain groups of people told them to push.
Theme: luxury profession
The second theme that emerged deals with how luxurious the profession can be in the context of
Central Asia. One journalist from Kyrgyzstan pointed out that November 7 is the day that all
journalists love because everyone (including government officials, businesses, and organizations)
sends baskets of fruits, invitations to buffets, invitations from the presidential administration for
special gatherings, flowers from government agencies and ministries, and other gifts. November 7 is
the country’s Day of Information and Press.
All the interviewed journalists mentioned that same situation and said the practice is not
uncommon in the developing world. They said that journalists accept bribes, seek bribes, sell
news, and use extortion to generate extra income for themselves and/or for their media outlets.
One journalist from Kyrgyzstan said:
The first time it happened was when I was working for KTR TV channel. We were offered $5,000 to a group of
Kyrgyz-language journalists in return for not reporting and distributing our journalistic material about
a criminal activity …It was a big temptation because $5,000 was the equivalent of five years’salary.
Another journalist from Kyrgyzstan said that some groups “may contact certain media outlets and
say that ‘we would like to have a partnership with you on a commercial basis (business partnership)’
but they may say that they do not have money. Instead of money, they have information.”The
journalist added that media outlets often push negative coverage about certain groups in society to
generate extra income. When the media outlets get asked, “why do you write such things,”the media
8B. KURAMBAYEV AND E. FREEDMAN
outlets’response would generally be “if you do not want us to write negatively about you, then you
should pay us.”
Although the interviewed journalists asserted that government officials are corrupt, journalists are
not immune to corruption either. In such a context, journalists say some officials force them to
accept money for not reporting reality and for not reporting the truth. And journalists demand
money as well. For example, at the time this paper was being written, Kyrgyz media outlets reported
that a journalist for the state-owned TV channel was detained
2
for attempted extortion (February 20,
2019, 24.kg). The journalist was reportedly released later but no updates have emerged since then.
A Tajikistan journalist said:
I recently had a conversation with a journalist from another region of Tajikistan. They earn their salaries based
on subscriptions. So their salary depends on the number of attracted subscribers to the newspaper. She said she
was able to force one local official to subscribe for 10-20 copies of the newspaper via threats. She described how
she went to that official’s office with a camera and microphone. And she started threatening how the local
official’s wrongdoings will be reported unless the local official has to subscribe to the newspaper.
One Kyrgyz journalist said articles in most cases are generally “ordered”by someone related to them.
Sometimes journalists write articles and tell those subjects that “we need to solve this”–asking for
bribes –for not publishing. If they do not give what the journalists want, the article goes to print. She
said:
We had a lawmaker whose half-naked and naked photos got printed, including ones with bras. Some news-
papers do not write anything but half-naked photos. But think about it. Relatives see it. Colleagues see such
photos. When asked why this happened, the lawmaker explained that journalists attempted to ask for money
for not publishing.
Another journalist from Kyrgyzstan added:
One time we were invited for a New Year’s event by a government agency. They gave expensive gifts to those
journalists …Sometimes they give foreign trips in exchange for loyalty.
Another journalist from Kyrgyzstan added:
For most journalists, the career promotion target is working for the press service of the Kyrgyz government.
I do not know why. And most of our colleagues strive to achieve that career promotion. I know most of our
colleagues show loyalty to certain officials and certain lawmakers because these people are not poor people.
They are interested in pushing their own agenda and ask journalists to promote what they [say] in Parliament
and ask that [certain] aspects go unreported. Journalists are regularly invited to certain events and they are paid
certain amounts in cash. We had one lawmaker who regularly conducted …[special gatherings to celebrate
a holiday or birthday], and as a funny/silly game he would do a lottery with prizes. The prizes were serious and
expensive stuff like laptops or refrigerators, TVs, and so on. I noticed that some of our colleagues unexpectedly
have an apartment or a car. Some journalists get an apartment as a gift.
One journalist from Kazakhstan described a similar situation in her country:
It happens quite often that TV journalists shoot a social issue including something that happened somewhere,
or the director did this thing or that thing. Or in local hospitals budget money is stolen or wards are not clean,
etc …. TV journalists plan to air the piece about such a hospital …Naturally, then the regional health chief
becomes aware that journalists visited the hospital and are aware of the problems …. The health care chief or
other officials in a regional health care department reach out to the chief editors of the TV station or medium
and kindly request they remove/delete the program because the entire health care department may be sacked
for such journalistic work. The chief editor may disagree and offers a solution for a certain amount of KZ tenge,
such as $4,000. This is how they do it. Such journalists may produce two or even three TV pieces a day. Kazakh
journalists do shoot such social problems. Not because they want to improve the health care sector of the
country but …[to] earn extra money.
Another journalist from Kazakhstan said:
2
https://24.kg/proisshestvija/109696_vbishkeke_zavyimogatelstvo_vzyatki_zaderjali_jurnalista_odnogo_iztelekanalov/.
JOURNAL OF MEDIA ETHICS 9
Somehow they [some journalists] manage to get very difficult-to-get information from some sources, including
about top-level officials or political figures of the country. They may be related to the secret services of the
country somehow. Otherwise, how could they gain access to such information? These journalists extort large
amounts. They may seek $20,000 or $30,000. They may threaten that if they do not pay, they would publish.
At least three interviewed journalists rationalized such questionable behavior, saying that it has to do
with the culture of Central Asia. “It has to do with the psychology of Kazakh people. We cannot
refuse people regarding what they ask for. We accept gifts when they give us, they bring us
something pleasant and you cannot refuse to accept it,”one Kazakh journalist said. “Perhaps
when you drive and see another driver asking to let him pass, you allow him to do so.”
A colleague from Kyrgyzstan said journalists lie because their editorial offices do not have a policy
against lying and added that knowledge about acceptable and unacceptable practices typically comes
from the editors, not by reading ethics codes.
Theme: access to information restricted
A third theme that surfaces from our data shows that the political situation in the region forces
journalists to act unethically. Journalists claim they must violate ethical rules to gather information
in such restricted environments. As a journalist from Kyrgyzstan explained:
I recently sent a request for information to the Supreme Court for an article. As usual, I called to find out at
what stage my request was. They answer that they sent everything by slow mail. Why such a bureaucracy and
waste of paper/money for mail? Why do I have to wait for an answer when they could give me a call? The
officials complain that journalists criticize them. Why not criticize them if government agencies turn everything
into absurdity?
One Kazakhstan journalist said:
One time I had a hidden camera. Sometimes people may not tell the truth in front of a camera but journalists
have such a technique. One time Akimat [head of a local government] kept saying everything is good but we
wanted to know the truth about coal (uglya) and about the price. But then we had a small hidden camera and
dressed up casually like on an ordinary non-working day or even wore dirty clothing. Then I went and spoke
with people. And they said that we do not have enough coal and what is available is very pricey –not what the
government keeps saying. This is the situation when we can violate the ethics norm in order to reveal the truth.
Similarly, a journalist from Tajikistan said:
Sometimes journalists use their roles to demand an answer from others, especially from government agencies.
For example, a journalist says, ‘I am a journalist and you must talk to me.’And they do not have politeness in
communicating with sources of information. If sources refuse, the journalists force them to speak to them.
An editor from Kyrgyzstan noted that the country has media outlets supervised by the presidential
administration. She described what happened during the 2011 election period when she worked for
Channel 5: “We used to run the ‘Week Review’news program on TV, and journalists would report
what had happened during the week. However, before running the news report, all the materials had
to be agreed to and approved by the presidential administration.”She added, “Those who influence
media in the country are those with powerful connections. Also, the fear is that if you say no, others
may take your job because you did not give what they asked for from you …and they may not allow
you to do such a job elsewhere.”
Discussion and conclusion
This is the first regional study of journalism ethics in Central Asia involving Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, countries where Soviet-era and post-Soviet media have been marred by
corruption. This study was distinctive in a number of ways. First, it was conducted among journalists
for whom ethics is considered a “Western luxury”(Mould & Schuster, 1999, p. 218). Because
10 B. KURAMBAYEV AND E. FREEDMAN
journalism plays a key role in democratic and transparent governance, it is important for journalists
to act ethically so the public can rely with confidence on them for truthful information to help make
important decisions.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with 24 journalists, the study seeks to explore perceptions of
professional ethics and challenges in the region. Some findings resonate with research on journalism
ethics elsewhere (e.g., Quinn, 2018; Rao & Malik, 2018; Tsetsura, 2015), including several compara-
tive studies cited earlier.
As the results showed, journalists in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan confront
certain common ethical issues, including accepting bribes, selling news, extortion, and gifts
(Onyebadi & Alajmi, 2016; Oshunkeye, 2011), predominantly but not exclusively in developing
countries; even in a developed country such as Germany, however, some journalists are indifferent to
questionable practices while others are “more or less committed to advocates of questionable
practice”(Kepplinger & Viererbl, 2018). A sizable number of these journalists thought that freebies
such as gifts, meals, and trips were acceptable, as is simultaneously working as a public relations
specialist for government and private companies while pursuing journalistic careers. The majority of
interviewees admitted that they have not read their ethics codes, while two said, “I do not need to
read the ethics code and I do not even want to read it.”
The major finding of this study is that Central Asian journalism is full of falsehoods and that
journalism in the region commercializes falsehoods. This is in line with the argument by
Kurambayev and colleagues (2019) that journalists in the region rate the traditional Western
watchdog role of journalism as the least important. Historically, Central Asian journalists empha-
sized political loyalty rather than public interest, in part because their countries were part of the
Soviet Union, which tightly controlled media outlets.
The findings suggest that media outlets and individual journalists are duping and exploiting the
citizenry and harming the potential democratization process. The second finding suggested by the
data is that the profession is viewed as a profit machine, including what is locally known as
“kompromat,”(compromising evidence), rather than serving the public, And finally, the region’s
political environment forces journalists to act unethically so they can gain access to information
necessary for their reporting. The findings strongly suggest that the citizenry are deprived of essential
information and factual news about what is happening in their own countries, at least partially
because of the growing threat of disinformation undermining both the democratization process and
ethical journalism practices.
Practical implications
Deceiving and misleading the citizens and commercializing lies damages potential democratization in
the region, a process that is already severely hampered by corruption, autocratic traditions of govern-
ance, economic weakness, cultural and historical practices, and national security concerns. This is
occurring at the same time as a new generation of journalists is coming into the profession in need of
role models who reflect high ethical and professional standards. Troublingly, as one Tajikistan
journalist said, “Low-quality journalists are becoming a model of excellence for young journalists.
As a result, young journalists want to be like these ‘model’journalists in the future.”An interviewee
from Uzbekistan said, “If journalists start following ethical rules, ethics code will complicate the work
of journalists. Following ethics codes will increase the length of time for journalists to produce (their)
works and materials. Who wants to complicate his professional life? Journalists do not want this. It is
better for them to keep doing things the way they have been doing all their lives.”
It is important to update and enhance how journalism is taught, as well as to develop holistic
media literacy programs that bring together media owners, regulatory bodies, journalists’unions,
academic institutions, media development groups, and civil society, along with editors and news
directors, media-related nongovernmental organizations, and other institutions.
JOURNAL OF MEDIA ETHICS 11
Journalism educators and trainers should also bear some responsibility for improving the
standards of journalism in these countries. Italy provides one model that might be adapted in
Central Asian countries. Italy’s professional rules for media require journalists to attend training
courses on ethical behavior. Every three years they must collect 60 credits, including 20 credits about
professional ethics (White, 2018). Perhaps a similar policy would improve the professional practice
of journalism in the region. We agree with Goodman that:
As the current “post-truth”phenomenon suggests, the very value of facts, truth, information, and knowledge –
the bedrock of journalism and free societies –is under attack …Such post-truth realities, combined with
citizens (especially young people) in democracies questioning whether nondemocratic forms of government –
including military rule –may better serve their needs, are setting off serious warning signs for the health of
freer societies worldwide …What can journalism educators and trainers do to fight back against such
undemocratic trends in an increasingly “less free”…media and world? Giving future journalists and press
advocates the best education possible is a good start (2017, p. 2).
We would expand Goodman’s observation to include not just current democracies but countries
such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan that are moving or may move, no matter
how slowly, in the direction of democratization. We would also explicitly reemphasize that ethics is
an essential component of the “best education possible”that she advocates.
Limitations
There are several grounds to critique this study. First, the sample is small and does not claim to be
representative. A second limitation is that this study relied on the words of journalists in interviews. It is
possible that they underestimated, withheld, or exaggerated aspects of their professional practices,
especially about unethical behavior. Future studies should follow up with a quantitative survey to
more fully understand the ethical behavior of journalists. In addition, future studies should examine
other stakeholders such as university faculty members teaching journalism, especially ethics courses.
ORCID
Bahtiyar Kurambayev http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2786-0735
Eric Freedman http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5326-8252
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