What I learned from working on the Society of Professional Journalists’ new Code of Ethics
This month’s biggest personal and professional success may not make it on my tombstone, but it is a thrill to note that words I wrote are included in the Society of Professional Journalists’ new code of ethics. Delegates of the nation’s largest journalism association approved the code on Sept. 6, 2014, nearly 18 years after […]
How the updated SPJ code of ethics helps justify one newspaper’s stand against naming a sex-crime suspect
Making a decision about ethics sometimes means doing your own thing while everyone else is doing something else — in public. One news organization did this in reporting the arrest of a 49-year-old man charged with possession of child pornography in Calhoun County, Ala. Multiple news organizations reported information provided by the Alabama Bureau of […]
A student-run newspaper misuses SPJ code of ethics to defend a decision
It’s been a difficult week at the University of California Santa Barbara, where six students died before the killer turned the gun on himself. Tragedy often brings out the best in journalists, who work difficult hours, ask difficult questions, and sometimes stifle their own pain to cover the story. It can be particularly difficult for […]
Is there an ethical difference in reporting the ‘chemical-related’ deaths of Philip Seymour Hoffman and another person?
Had it not been Super Bowl Sunday, the world might have taken even more notice about the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, found dead on Feb. 2 wit h a needle in his arm and 70 bags of heroin in his apartment. A quick Google News search this morning showed more than 5,300 articles about […]
Bad journalism, bad ethics, or both? Poynter’s list of biggest news mistakes and Gallup’s “ethics in professions” poll may or may not be related
Two disparate pieces of annual news–Poynter’s list of the year’s media errors, and Gallup’s “honesty in professions” report–come together this week for a journalism ethics lesson, on a Poynter page with links to both stories but no connection. Poynter’s Craig Silverman released his yearly list of funny, scary, awful and goofy media errors for 2013, […]
Washington Post column on Redskins name change uses different standards for in-print, online publication
By Caroline Meintzer On Oct. 7, 2013, The Washington Post ran an article in their printed newspaper that included an editorial by Dana Milbank. Milbank’s editorial called out the Washington Redskins’ team name for being racist, and he further illustrated his point by asking people to compare the Redskins name to other racial epithets. In […]
Sports Illustrated comes to Calhoun County, Alabama, with lessons in football, race and media ethics
I was a second grader at Jacksonville Elementary School in October 1972, so nobody talked to us 7-year-olds about the helmet-to-helmet hit that killed Jacksonville High’s Anthony “Speedy” Cannon on a Friday night at Wellborn High School. A decade later, as a Jacksonville High senior and sports editor of the weekly Jacksonville News, I didn’t […]
The case of the cursing anchor: AJ Clemente, virtue ethics, and consistency
It’s easy to feel bad for AJ Clemente, the West Virginia University graduate who uttered two words you’re not allowed to say on broadcast television just as his first anchoring shift began on Sunday, April 20, on KFYR-TV in Bismarck, North Dakota. The NBC affiliate quickly fired him, but cited “personnel issues” in saying little […]
This is why we love TV news.
From an anchor on WBRC-TV’s morning show. The show airs from 4:30 to 9 a.m. Too bad there’s not enough time in 3.5 hours to do any rebuttal.