The media's cause has not been helped by writers who fabricate stories, or television news crews that doctor experiments. These acts, to just about anyone, are clearly unethical. One would hope people would recognize that, like any profession, the media has a minority of individuals who do not do the right thing, while many others do. That latter part is what has set the alarms off in the minds of many American newspaper editors.
Ethics are voluntary, something one participates in if one is of good character.
What may violate one man's ethics may not necessarily violate another's. They are responsible only to the news organizations that employ them, which are in turn responsible to their customers, the news-consuming public. A set of absolute rules cannot necessarily be applied across the board. But on the flip side, many news gatherers would be well-advised to revisit the reasons they got into the news business in the first place, and evaluate their own set of personal ethics. And if groups or associations of journalists wish to voluntarily adhere to one code of ethics or another, and tout those ethics to their readers, there's no harm in that, either.