A Free-market Model for Media Ethics: Adam Smith's Looking Glass

Abstract

This article points out the challenges to current models for media ethics that arise from the private ownership of public media, and it proposes a new model that integrates Adam Smith's free-market theory and his system of moral reasoning. The model creates moral obligations to maintain the integrity of a system for anyone who profits from it. This model renews an appeal for the contemporary notion of transparency and is built on an analogy between the system of the free market for creating wealth and the system of the free press for producing reliable market information.