Journalism schools' ethics obligations

What would you do as a faculty member in this situation?
Annenberg USC-Dubai journalism program
What factors did you consider? What does not matter in your consideration?

Strat comm vlogging

What do you do when you want to get around the "filter of the mainstream media"? Check out this State Department staffer's attempt at getting average citizens to engage with him on YouTube.
Do you think people will pay attention? Do you think journalists need to do a better job covering things that aren't "edgy"?

Young at heart

A post from a 202er:

Katy,

Joe here, one of your 202 students. I came across this article on msnbc.com.

This article doesn't have much of a connection to media ethics. On the other hand, this man is a "semi-retired journalist," as the article states.

Perhaps nothing embodies the Teddy Roosevelt quote I have below in all my e-mails more than this story. This is what life is about. This guy's a testament to the human spirit.

Just thought it was interesting. Take a gander.

Joe :-)

http://beyondthearc.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/22/1582620.aspx

What do you think about your journalism education?

Check this out from New Hampshire:

http://media.www.tnhonline.com/media/storage/paper674/news/2008/10/21/Commentary/A.Wake.Up.Call.To.Journalism.Students-3496916.shtml

Public servants and the media

Wow, this is a shot across the bow coming out of Detroit. This same council member was part of a kerfuffle I use in lectures on the compelling nature of video.
When you are a public servant, do you have an obligation to deal with the media? Why or why not? Journalists are often derided as being biased or outright liars. Are they? Does the state of news media today concern you?

Daily Show

So in the volume-challenged and time-elapsing lecture hall Monday morning, I didn't get a chance to play that last video for you.

Go to Comedy Central and watch the video marked "Sarah Palin Gender Card."

So what is the Daily Show? Is it journalism? If so, how so? If not, why not? It matters a great deal because you and your peers watch it more than you consume mainstream news media.

Facebook and Tragedy

Check out this blog post at the University of Massachusetts. Be sure to read the comments below it. We've covered this terrain in 202 before, and I wrote a column about it for the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
I'm curious what you think of the practice of reporters and editors going into MySpace and Facebook profiles of people after they've died or been injured. Is it ethical? Necessary?

Ethics and Medill, an update

In case you missed it, I started an earlier thread about controversy brewing at Northwestern's journalism school and its dean using unattributed comments in his letter in the alumni magazine.
Yesterday, some Medill faculty fired a shot across the bow.
I have a lot of thoughts here but want yours. Specifically, I'd like to know what you think about the idea that PR writing is held to a lower sourcing standard than journalism.
And what about anonymous sources, are they OK to use? When?
And let's get right to the heart here. Is the problem that people think the dean should have named his sources or is it that they suspect he didn't really have those sources? If it's the latter, do they have a responsibility to come out and say it?
Finally, does it matter? I was having a little IM spat with a journalist friend yesterday, warning him that it's all too easy to blow these insider controversies out of proportion when they may not matter much to the wider public. I used you guys as Exhibit A: you posted only two comments to the thread on Medill but put up 30 about NIU. You have a clear sense of what is important to you. Do news media share those priorities?

Ethics and Medill

A great discussion topic from a 202-er:
______
Hi Katy,
I'm sure you've heard the dean of the Medill school of journalism at Northwestern was caught possibly using fabricated sources in the alumni magazine. I thought this would be interesting to discuss on the blog. It is really shocking that the dean at the most prestigious journalism school would resort to this- what kind of example does his behavior give to journalists everywhere? Here is the link to the article in the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-northwestern-dean_14feb14,0,4916533.story
__________
Let's explore this.

I wrote a piece in our alumni newsletter a few years ago and led with a reference to an old city editor of mine. Unlike Lavine's vague memory I recall clearly, actually, stewing a bit over quoting him, grappling with whether to go with "show them" or "show 'em." But I decided the latter was really the way he spoke to me. Honestly, it never occurred to me to name him. I never considered him an "unnamed source." His identity was in no way germane to the story, and I remembered vividly what he had said to me (I routinely saw him as god-like in my reporting infancy).

I also realize now that I did just the same thing with a column I wrote last summer on the ethics of using social networking profiles of crime victims in reporting. The wrap to that story came from a visit I made to a 202 lab to discuss the issue. I recall just as vividly who told me the story and the context in which it was raised. Yet, again, I did not name her and made no conscious decision not to do so.
___________
Journalism schools are interesting places to play out journalism ethics. So what of it, the dean's and my choices? What of the other sources -- students and faculty members -- refusing to go on the record to discuss the situation? Is it OK to use anonymous sources? If so, in what circumstances? Was the dean's letter "journalism"? Did I do my audiences in both cases a disservice?

Strib Layoffs

Another 202er supplies a post. (Have I mentioned how much I love you guys?)
________
Hey Katy,

Here's an article on WCCO (Minneapolis) from today. Looks like the Star Tribune is laying off people in their print department. Tie into the Cap Times?

http://wcco.com/business/star.tribune.job.2.651035.html
________

This was a part of the conversation I'm hearing at the multimedia conference I'm at this week. Job losses are nothing new in newspapers right now. The interesting, and disconcerting, element to this one is that these are involuntary layoffs, not voluntary buyouts. At papers like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that have been cutting staff, the cuts to date have been voluntary and accompanied by a severance package. These cuts are not anything pretty, but they're a grade above a layoff.
So here's what I want to know from you: does this scare you? If you want to go into journalism, how does this time feel for you? I gave a speech last week to the Wisconsin Newspaper Association titled, "Why It's a Good Time to Want to Be a Reporter Even Though Everyone Says It Isn't" (and incidentally, the subtitle was "Yes, They Pay Me to Teach People to Be Concise"). Why do you think I'm optimistic?

Reporting and Airline Security

Curious what you think of this case. A reporter in New Zealand followed up on a story on an in-flight stabbing aboard an airplane by boarding a flight with a knife and a fake gun in carry-on luggage.
What are the ethical implications here? How do you weigh the risk the move posed against the public benefit of pointing out holes in the security system? Should the reporter be prosecuted? Or was this exactly what journalism is supposed to do?

Cool Innovation

A few years ago, I happened to stumble across a site called chicagocrime.org that brought together mapping and data on crimes in Chicago. I found it downright thrilling as a former crime reporter because it gave people access to information both broad-based and hyper-local. I had always felt constrained by paper, ink and time, never able to tell my community all of what was going on and where. This site struck me as a fascinating extension of journalism.
So I was beyond bummed when it went offline last week ...
... But thrilled that its creator, Adrian Holovaty, launched a new project that takes the original model many steps forward. Dubbed "EveryBlock," the project gives users access to data well beyond crime. Want to know if a restaurant in your neighborhood has been inspected? It's there. News stories covering your block? Got that too. Even Flickr photos.
Go in and surf around in it. They're EveryBlocking now in Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
Then tell me what you think. Is it a site you'd use in your own city? What's your opinion of the interface? What other kinds of information would you use?

Covering College Athletes

You may have heard about a controversy this week in Oklahoma when a college football coach went on a tirade against a local reporter who had written a column critical of a student player. The reporter stands by her column.
One of Gundy's assertions is that the news media should stop treating college athletes like they're professionals when they're just kids. Do you agree? Should sports reporters aggressively cover college athletes? Give them a break based on youth? And why do you say that?

Facebook and Reporting

I have column out in the new edition of The American Editor from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, discussing the ethics of using Facebook to find information about crime and accident victims who have been killed.
I've discussed this with a bunch of you, many of whom have told me wrenching stories about losing young friends and seeing it play out on FB.
What do you think of this? Is it fair game for reporters? Does it weird you out? Feel voyeuristic? I'd love to read your comments.

Truthiness

Stephen Colbert coined my favorite word of the last 10 years: truthiness.
A few media orgs have started actually trying to decide whether a public statement is true (imagine that).
- the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly have launched Politifact to verify the claims of presidential candidates
- the Annenberg Public Policy Center at Penn has FactCheck.org
- the Washington Post has started a blog called The Fact Checker, with a reporter and researcher applying a "Pinocchio test" to public statements of interest (check out the post earlier this week on the "General Betray Us" ad)
Jack Shafer does a good job rounding them up in a new piece in Slate. Here's a bit of it:
Why can't the press drop the pretenses and call people who lie liars?
On the Media co-host Bob Garfield, exasperation filling his voice, asked that late last month on his show. Garfield's prime example of a public figure deserving the label was Alberto Gonzales.
"In the major institutions of the media, hardly a soul has invoked the term that best describes [Gonzales'] failure to tell the truth," Garfield said. "The word is lying."
So should the news media call a liar a liar? Who decides whether something is "true"? Check out some current controversies. Can we objectively say what is true and what is untrue? If it's a news organization's job to inform the public when someone is lying, what's taken them so long?

Journalism internships

The Institute for Human Studies has internships in journalism. Application deadline is Nov. 1. Find more info here.