Aside from prohibiting fabrication or plagiarism of news stories or other obvious examples of journalism fraud, generally accepted ethical rules include:

• Not injecting one's own opinion into a news story, in other words striving to maintain a neutral point of view, unless the story is clearly labeled as "news analysis" or "commentary";

• Attributing all alleged facts, not witnessed directly by the reporter, to someone else ("Police say....")

• Writing in a fashion that avoids possible defamation liability by clearly labeling allegations as such ("The defendant allegedly committed the crime");

• Avoiding the use of misdirection, for example, in television news, by "staging" events that occur within view of the camera, or in news photography, by "doctoring" or altering photographic images;

• Allowing persons who are the subject of adverse news stories a reasonable opportunity to respond to the adverse information before the story is published or broadcast.