Should Journalist be Ethical?

Journalism ethics seem to be a self-imposed ethical system. Today, I ran across The Society of Professional Journalist Web site that posts an adopted 1996 Code of Ethics list, and what an impressive list this is. In the Seek Truth And Report it section, the leader sentence caused me to take a collection of the what was being impressed upon journalists. The leader sentence reads “Journalist should:” and this got me wondering why the word should was used rather than a word that is more definitive. Clearly, this Society is establishing rule system that guides journalist but with this one word, it also seems to infer that it is OK to not follow these principles. Is there a quintessential journalist organization that journalist should look to for guidance and structure?