The Code We Live By: Rebuilding Trust Through Ethics
October 19, 2026
Dr. Dan Axelrod, Chair of the Society of Professional Journalists’ (SPJ) Ethics Committee and co-chairman of its Code revision subcommittee.
Dan spent a decade as a full-time journalist, including as Gannett’s syndicated New York business reporter, earning 15 journalism awards for in-depth and investigative reporting before moving into nearly a decade of media consulting and strategic communications, and teaching media ethics, journalism, and strategic communications at the college level. "
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What does it mean to practice ethical journalism in an era of AI, misinformation, and declining public trust? In this episode of Humanity in Journalism, host Jessica Wiederhorn sits down with Dr. Dan Axelrod, chair of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Committee and co-chair of the subcommittee that just revised the SPJ Code of Ethics for the first time since 2014. They explore what changed in the updated code, why ethics applies to opinion journalism just as much as straight reporting, and what the data from more than 9,000 articles analyzed through ReporterLens consistently shows: when ethics is present, excellence follows. Available now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.