Code of Ethics, adopted at a meeting of media worker organisations and media practitioners which formally inaugurated the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) in Bridgetown, Barbados on 28 November 2001.

Ethics, conduct, & deportment
Members of any affiliate of the ACM are hereby enjoined to refrain from:

1. Writing, publishing or broadcasting news, information or comments not based on facts, or designed to misinform;

2. Fabricating and/or plagiarizing news;

3. Engaging in the practice of self-censorship to suppress essential information;

4. Revealing or betraying the secrecy of sources of information.  (A source of information, confidentially shared with the journalist, may be disclosed to one’s editor / general manager at one’s discretion and based on the degree of employer-employee confidence);

5. Falling victim to bribery by acceptance of gifts of any kind in order to cause the publication or broadcast of news, press statements, comments or photographs;

6. Making offensive and unnecessary references to and discriminating against an individual on the basis of race, colour, sex, nationality, religion or ideology;

7. Writing, publishing or broadcasting materials inimical to the region’s cultural and political sovereignty.

In the discharge of their professional duties, the ACM’s members are further encouraged to:

8. Dress and conduct themselves on any assignment in a manner that can only enhance respect for the journalism profession;

9. Resist, at all cost, being drunk on the job; using illegal drugs; or from behaving in a manner that’s likely to bring disrespect to the profession;

10. Display due courtesy to leaders and institutions and in the general exercise of professional functions;

11. Resort only to principled methods in obtaining and disseminating news and photographs;

12. Refrain from any behaviour that could result in undermining the work of professional colleagues;

13. Resist interference by governments, private organizations and others in the gathering and dissemination of news, information and views;

14. Demonstrate keen interest in training and research to competently serve the profession and the Caribbean people.