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 […]
Chrysler: If you can find a journalist for sale, buy him
You might recall the 1980s Chrysler ads where then-chairman Lee Iacocca challenged buyers: “If you can find a better car, buy it!” A post from Jalopnik site suggests Fiat-Chrysler has a new line: “If you can find a journalist for sale, buy him.” Automotive News journalist Nick Bunkley noted that the company, at a media […]
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 […]
On the ethics of making mistakes while reporting during a chaotic event: Lessons from the Washington Naval Yard
By Kelcey Sexton On the morning of Sept. 16, 13 people were killed at the Washington Navy Yard, one of the victims being the shooter, Aaron Alexis. In the midst of the chaos that morning, some news organizations were forced to retract reports including misinformation given to them by sources. Two of those organizations, NBC […]
Fox News says GOP politicians say sequestration is just hype, but fails to notice GOP politicians worried about sequestration
FoxNews.com’s top story is a think piece that quotes plenty of GOP folks saying that the Obama administration is making too much out of the impending mandatory cuts to federal spending. The headline: “Economic Armageddon? Republicans call sequester warnings hype.” (Or, a sexier hed from the site’s front page: Chicken Little Tactics? GOP Points to […]
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.