• Campaigning in the media

Many print publications take advantage of their wide readership and print persuasive pieces in the form of unsigned editorialsthat represent the official position of the organization. Despite the ostensible separation between editorial writing and news gathering, this practice may cause some people to doubt the political objectivity of the publication's news reporting. (Though usually unsigned editorials are accompanied by a diversity of signed opinions from other perspectives.)

Other publications and many broadcast media only publish opinion pieces that are attributed to a particular individual (who may be an in-house analyst) or to an outside entity. One particularly controversial question is whether media organizations should endorse political candidates for office. Political endorsements create more opportunities to construe favoritism in reporting, and can create a perceived conflict of interest.

• Investigative methods

Investigative journalismis largely an information-gathering exercise, looking for facts that are not easy to obtain by simple requests and searches, or are actively being concealed, suppressed or distorted. Where investigative work involvesundercover journalismor use ofwhistleblowers, and even more if it resorts to covert methods more typical ofprivate detectivesor even spying, it brings a large extra burden on ethical standards.

Anonymous sources are double-edged - they often provide especially newsworthy information, such as classified or confidential information about current events, information about a previously unreported scandal, or the perspective of a particular group that may fear retribution for expressing certain opinions in the press. The downside is that the condition of anonymitymay make it difficult or impossible for the reporter to verify the source's statements. Sometimes sources hide their identities from the public because their statements would otherwise quickly be discredited. Thus, statements attributed to anonymous sources may carry more weight with the public than they might if they were attributed. (See also:news source.)

TheWashingtonpress has been criticized in recent years for excessive use of anonymous sources, in particular to report information that is later revealed to be unreliable. The use of anonymous sources increased markedly in the period before the2003 invasion of Iraq.[19]

• Science issues

This article possibly contains original research. Pleaseimprove itbyverifyingthe claims made and addinginline citations. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed.(August 2012)

The mainstream press is often criticized for poor accuracy in reporting science news. Many reporters are not scientists, and are thus not familiar with the material they are summarizing. Technical information is also difficult to contextualize for lay audiences, and short-form reporting makes providing background, context, and clarification even harder.Food scaresare an example of the need for responsible science journalism, as are stories connected with the safety of medical procedures.

Because science deals largely with accepted facts or scientific consensus, it can illuminate some of the common complaints leveled at journalistic standards and practices. For example, in the common tendency in the name of fairness, to seek out and equally report "both sides of the story," it would be ludicrous spending equal time reporting the "flat Earth" argument when ever a "spherical Earth" was assumed. Not so much, in say; society, culture, or politics, where it's easy for the apathetic or uninformed to pretend everything is "soft," mere, or unreal opinion. Likewise, the common practice to without discrimination, publish "Average Joe's" highly opinionated opinion on the cause of something, (such as a flood) simply because he's standing by the side of the flood observing it. But in fact the cause is probably technical, and may have great economic and political import, —as will the published article within the realm of public opinion. It is sometimes claimed that some publishers do not want expert reporters because they cannot-be/are-not objective in their reporting. Critics argue this definition of objective actually means "ignorant." In science, as noted above, where one opinion is NOT as good as any other as we pretend in politics and various other social arenas, this seems particularly silly. Science itself has rules (such asscientific consensusandpeer review) so it is not uselessly chasing every low-merit hypothesis coming from countless megaphones. Some of these values are explained in Kuhn'sThe Structure of Scientific Revolutionsand byKarl Popper, etc. and are likely to be adopted by some science writers. For all these and related reasons, science reporting may be on some leading edges of journalism.