The ethical crossroads in the age of the “new media”

Abstract

The spread of digital technology, which allows anyone (in theory) to disseminate in-formation on the Internet, is the greatest and a dramatic new ethical question of the modern world. It is especially true for the principles that traditionally have guided journalism. This article addresses some of the central dilemmas that journalism faces in this new context, and poses questions regarding possible limits to what should be made pub-lic, in view of the loss of this control historically applied through journalism and the everpresent hypothesis of anonymity on the net.