‘Hedges’ and Media Ethics: A Case in Indonesian Newspaper

This paper attempts to reveal the use of ‘hedges’ as the realization of media ethics on newspaper. Hedges, expressing ‘grey’ meaning, are widely used by the journalists to convey certain information related to ethics. According to ethics, sensitive case associated with ‘ethnicity’, ‘race’, ‘religion’, and ‘social group’ should be presented in prudent way to avoid conflict which might appear among parties involved in the news. Accordingly, such information might not clearly and explicitly expressed. This paper will discuss the relationship between hedges realized in impersonating and protecting participants and journalistic ethics codes. This is a case study of ‘hedges’ employed in the editorial of Solopos, local Indonesian newspaper published in Surakarta.