You gotta read The Onion’s ‘friend of the court’ brief
Reading court filings usually feels like having a tooth filed or filled, but The Onion’s amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court filed in early October 2022 is worth your time. This may be the most friendly written “friend of the court” brief ever. Background: Anthony Novak built a fake Facebook page that mocked […]
A Universal action: When PR’s goal is to hide the truth
By Chris Roberts Very few people knew just how devastating was the June 2008 fire at the Universal Music Group’s archives that destroyed the master recordings of thousands of musical artists – from Count Basie to Snoop Dog, Chuck Berry to Nirvana. The company made sure. In fact, it took 11 years before the public […]
Are millennial ‘community’ sites real journalism? One group’s odyssey to find out
A collection of University of Alabama students built a final project for an ethics class that asks a simple but profound question: Are millennial sites such as Buzzfeed Community, Medium, Huffington Post Community, HerCampus or the Odyssey real journalism sites, or something else? Their site — the Iliad 499 — is worth a look.
When you write ‘reform,’ the propagandists win
As the Trump administration this week proposes changes to the nation’s tax system, here’s a reminder to journalists and talking heads: When you use the word “reform” without putting it in quotation marks and attributing the phrase to the person or document using the word, then the propagandists win. The etymology of the word “reform” […]
Cartoonist fired for biting the hand that feeds his publication
A herd of media are writing about Rick Friday, who was fired from Farm News, a weekly publication of The Fort Dodge (Iowa) Messenger, after it published this cartoon pointing out that the CEOs of three men who run major farming-focused corporations earned a combined $53 million in 2015, as much as 2,129 Iowa farmers. […]
Charleston Post and Courier vs. Battery: Reporter does the right thing and a soccer team owner overreacts
UPDATE: That didn’t take long. The United Soccer League stepped in a few hours after this happened (on April 8, 2016), and the Post & Courier has its credentials again. League president Jake Edwards’ statement spanked the club owner: “We will be taking the appropriate steps to prevent instances like this from happening again.” ************************************************************ […]
Journalism schools should have a standard code of ethics
By Laura Testino In Walt Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” the cartoon candlestick character, Lumière, leads a musical number featuring the other anthropomorphic kitchenware. Soon after the song, “Be Our Guest” begins, Lumière exclaims to “Try the grey stuff, it’s delicious!” But some journalists would do no such thing: the black and white stuff is […]
Loyalties and transparency: Clients wonder what ad agencies are hiding with rebates from media companies
There’s an old saying in advertising, attributed to department store magnate John Wanamaker or to carmaker Henry Ford: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Companies that pay advertising agencies to buy media time have another worry inside one of those halves. Business Insider says a […]
In case no one told you, some things are so wrong they’re not worth spending much time on in an ethics discussion
The third paragraph in Doing Ethics in Media: Theories and Practical Applications explains why the book runs 442 pages: If ethical decision making were simply a matter of choosing between right or wrong, good or bad, this would be a very short book. However, such choices are not always black or white; they’re much more […]