The era of digital journalism has, if nothing else, been riven by questions and controversies over ethical practices large and small, ranging from debates on when journalists should publish classified documents and suspicions about the activism of Glenn Greenwald to whether reporters should have steered clear of interviewing Charlie Sheen went he went off the rails.

Now journalism professor Stephen J.A.

Ward has created a new website aimed at helping journalists everywhere navigate the complex and often confusing world of media ethics in the digital age.

Called "Media Morals," the site includes Ward's "Code for Global Integrated Ethics," which he describes as "one of the first comprehensive statements of fundamental principles for journalism ethics in a global and online media era."

Among other things, the code defines media ethics as "the responsible use of the freedom to publish in any format, no matter who creates the content or who owns the means of publication." It adds that the news media "are global in reach and impact. Global power entails global responsibilities."

In an e-mail interview, Ward, a professor at the University of Oregon-Portland's School of Journalism and Communication, said he created the site "because there is an urgent need for more online spaces where people can reasonably inform themselves about current ethical issues and discuss them in a reasonable, non-partisan manner."

Surprisingly, Ward said there were "too few journalism ethics sites that fulfill this function, despite the fact that there has never been so much journalism (or what claims to be journalism) online and offline. Too many people, and students, and journalists, are unaware of the discipline of journalism ethics, its history, and how complex it is when we live in a global world."

Ultimately, he added, the goal is to "dig deeper into our understandings of what we mean by 'responsible journalism.'"

It's a mission that's sorely needed in the wild-west environment of online news, a milieu populated not just by reporters working for established news outlets but also by bloggers and citizen journalists, a world where even just the definition of who is and who is not a journalist remains hazy.

There are other dilemmas as well; is aggregation ethical, and when does it cross the line into plagiarism? Is objectivity a relic of the pre-digital age, or is it even more necessary in a time when so many so-called journalists do little more than spout opinions?

Ward, who covered the Persian Gulf War and conflicts in Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Northern Ireland for the Canadian Press News Agency, said there is a real need to reinvent journalism ethics in the digital age. "We need to move from a professional, pre-digital media ethics to a digital media ethics for professional and citizen," he said.

"The advent of digital media ethics "changes and challenges the basic tenants of pre-digital journalism ethics: Is objectivity still a valid norm? How should people use social media to do journalism? What is the role of journalists in a world of multi-media and multiple forms of journalism?" he added.

Ward said the site is actually geared toward both journalists and laypersons, "literally, any member of the public who is interested in the principles, controversies and changing nature of journalism and its ethics. I will work hard to make sure that all writing on the site is accessible to the public and avoids excessive jargon or 'inside baseball' discussions. I will seek to show how any issue, not matter how arcane or technical, links back to basic ethical values and principles."

Ward has been interviewed many times on this site for his take on everything from the Britain's phone-hacking scandal and the Wikileaks document dumps to revelations that sex trafficking activist Somaly Mam lied to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, among others. 

He said that for too long, journalism ethics had been confined "within professional journalism and its associations. We need to see journalism ethics as belonging to the public and what it needs from its media system, not a professional, in-house concern."

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