As a Journalist, there are a great deal of laws and ethics you need to follow. For instance, when using images that aren't yours you often have to check the licensing to make sure you are able to use that image, and then give proper attribution when you do. There are also times when you need to ask permission to replicate someone's work, like posting another person's article on a site or using information without attribution. This year, multiple sites decided to publish work from Scot Scoop on their sites without the writer's consent, including one of mine. thanks to the efforts of a member of Scot Scoop's team, Elise, the sites were notified and proceeded to take the articles off their sites. It's important to know laws and be ethical because sometimes lawsuits get involved, and no one wants that. There are also laws that protect journalists and give them certain rights to information, such as FOIA's. Every journalist should know laws they need to follow, and laws that protect them in order to be successful.
In one of my articles I was unable to take a picture of what I needed for my feature photo, so I had to find one off the internet that was licensed with creative commons. because of this, my editor and I had to be sure to properly attribute the photo to avoid copyright infringement.