When looking at journalism ethics winners, consider the public relations losers
By Chris Roberts The Society of Professional Journalists announced the winners of its annual Ethics in Journalism awards on Sept. 22, 2022. They are: ►Hannah Dreyfus of ProPublica, whose project The Liberty Way showed how Liberty University dealt with students who reported rape. ►Josh Renaud of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, whose reporting revealed that a […]
Define your terms, or the propagandists win
Iowa State’s Michael Bugeja makes a strong point in a Poynter Institute column (June 30, 2022) about how some Republican candidates use the term “RINO” — Republican in Name Only” — to describe other Republicans who show “apparent disloyalty to Trump as GOP kingmaker.” His commentary includes Republican Jim Jones, who in 2021 provided a […]
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 […]
How should news organizations respond to non-responsive responses for comment?
Ethical news organizations follow the tenet in the Society of Professional Journalist’s code of ethics that says good journalists “[d]iligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing.” More and more of those subjects don’t actually answer the questions, however. Companies, politicians, and others often respond to […]
Why we need journalism: Because PR-focused governments like to hide uncomfortable truth.
Two cities remind us why we need journalism to tell truths that PR-infatuated governments don’t want to tell: * The former mayor of Birmingham, Larry Langford, died Jan. 8. The city’s official web site posted this stirring obituary of Langford.What it neglected to mention was the uncomfortable truth that Langford was a felon, arrested and […]
Facebook’s public relations efforts raise ethical questions
The New York Times took a penetrating look at how Facebook has handled the continuing questions about how it deals with its own shenanigans, and its difficulties in stopping the shenanigans of those who would use Facebook for its own propaganda and misinformation purposes. The Times‘ “Deny, Delay and Deflect” story makes the world’s biggest […]
Today in evil PR: A student loan company invents a guy who talked to journalists
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that LendEDU invented a guy named Drew Cloud to run The Student Loan Report, which purported to provide fun insight and good information about the burgeoning student loan industry. Cloud was quoted by multiple media organizations, including MSNBC and The Washington Post. There was a picture of Cloud on […]
The Ethics of artificial intelligence: Platform magazine says public relations has to think about AI, too.
Artificial intelligence is slowly taking over the world. And, as usual, the technology is bounding far ahead of the law and the ethics. In this Platform magazine article, student writer Skylar Spencer raises some of the questions that everyone — whether in the AI business or a consumer of AI-enhanced technology — ought to be […]
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.” ************************************************************ […]