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 […]
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 […]
When ‘fake news’ isn’t fake, and the ethics of a spokesman
It’s been a few months since news organizations caught the criminal lie flung by Melissa Howard, a GOP candidate for the Florida House of Representatives. Short take: She claimed she had a degree from Miami University in Ohio, and she did not. Once caught, and after some lying before acknowledging the truth, she dropped out […]
Figures lie and liars figure: Journalists should be wary of bias behind numbers
By Serena Bailey In the immediate wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group that works to reduce gun violence, tweeted that the Parkland shooting had been the 18th school shooting of the year. This statistic was shared by Bernie Sanders and New York […]
Associated Press stylebook needs to step it up on language for covering the disabled community
By Zoe Norberg In the past several years, the Associated Press has added chapters ranging from social media to religion, and most recently, data journalism to the categorized section in the back of the AP Stylebook. Nevertheless, an in-depth chapter about the proper usage of disability language is absent from the stylebook––instead, this topic is […]
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 […]
Going undercover-ish to report that athletes have sex while at the Olympics?
Apparently, The Daily Beast thinks it’s newsworthy enough to go undercover and find out whether athletes not only have sex with athletes while at the Games, and whether athletes will meet non-athletes, too. A reporter used social media tools to see who might meet up with him. Most of the respondents are gay, which when […]
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. […]
Aristotle and Persuasion: Are Gossip Magazines Doing This Right?
By Anna Van Der Like According to the New World Encyclopedia, “celebrity” journalism is less reputable than other types of journalism. Some would argue that these gossip columns are not journalistic at all. Yet they are incredibly successful and continue to sell even in a time when print media is slowly fading away. Aristotle taught […]