Journalist Duties in Islam

Given the current communication time as well as the necessity for jurisprudence to be accountable for tackling news-related problems, examining news and news-disseminating issues seems to be of paramount significance. Drawing upon jurisprudence and Islamic law as well as views of Islamic scholars, the present paper deals with a number of duties which should be taken into consideration by journalists; duties such as avoiding misleading public opinion, propagation of prostitution and corruption, weakening religious beliefs, searching out people’s secrets and disclosing them, lying, vilification, fooling, insult and theft. In fact, investigating these issues rises out of curiosity for a response to the question that whether a journalist is obligated to observe principles governing his profession or not? A documented descriptive research, this investigation examines journalism through a legal-jurisprudence analysis from a new perspective. It aims to show that Islam, as an institution seeking to enjoy a religious media, has provided certain duties for a journalist as one of the Muslim community obligated individuals.