A made-for-TV marriage quickly dies
It’s been a little more than three months since the wedding of Gerry Turner with Theresa Nist, who met on the made-for-TV meat/meet market of The Golden Bachelor. He’s the golden bachelor; she’s the one among the 20-plus women on the show to whom he proposed at the end of the Fall 2023 season and […]
Privacy and the dead man from S-Town
By Hannah Saad Brian Reed, a producer with NPR’s This American Life, was looking for new story ideas when John B. McLemore, a resident of Woodstock, Alabama, contacted him to investigate a possible cover-up of a murder in Bibb County. Reed and McLemore corresponded through phone calls and emails and eventually, Reed traveled to Woodstock […]
It’s hard to ethically justify publishing photos of celebrity deaths
By Alley Paquin Media outlets use sensationalist headlines regularly to grab the attention of readers, encourage them to click on their website and read their stories. However, clickbait and sensationalist titles about celebrity suicides can have a disastrous effect. According to The Guardian, there was a 17 percent increase in suicides in the UK following […]
Tom Brady, and why it’s best to leave 5-year-old children out of it
By Chris Roberts Kindergarten teachers [note]My wife taught them for most of her 26 years in the classroom.[/note] will tell you that their real job isn’t to teach math and the alphabet. The real job is teaching 5-year-olds that the world does not revolve around them. This is an important lesson for all of us, […]
Privacy for young adults and the importance of dumb mistakes
For then-Michigan student Jim Reische, the mistake was spraypainting “Corporate Cheeseburgers” on a McDonald’s building. For then-Alabama student Chris Roberts, the mistake(s) showed up regularly in The Crimson White, where I wrote a Friday column – often with no idea when I sat down at the keyboard on a Thursday afternoon. It was a self-enforced […]
How some news organizations track you online
By Aaron Bonner In 2017, information is available in a matter of milliseconds, from cake recipes to a politician’s tax forms, but the availability of certain information has created privacy concerns for both journalists and readers. With more news organizations shifting to an online readership, readers have begun to question the information gathered by each […]
Photos can put unnecessary tragedy on display
By lepilat — From JCM 493 Blog post 1 Imagine a family that had barely come to understand the tragic death of their son when local news stations started publishing photos from the car accident. Images spread across the community and are quickly adopted by national outlets as well. Pictures of his death are now spread across […]
‘S-town’ podcast raises an s-load of ethical questions
By Mary Shannon Wells Even if you didn’t listen to it yourself, the murder mystery podcast “Serial,” which was monumental for both investigative journalism and the podcast platform, got a lot of media attention. Despite its popularity, “Serial” brought with it some ethical issues for the field of investigative journalism, which often hangs out in the […]
On Lamar Odom: Is constant celebrity news coverage ethical?
By Leila Beem Núñez When Lamar Odom was found unconscious in a Nevada brothel last Tuesday, bedlam ensued. News outlets across the nation seized immediately and persistently on the story, and there has been little rest from it since. The former NBA star and reality television celebrity became the constant focal point across national news […]