No, Sen. Hawley, the First Amendment does not limit ethical choices
By Chris Roberts Somehow, a U.S. senator with a law degree thinks that the First Amendment means a private speaker does not have the right to make an ethics choice. The background: U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., had a contract with Simon & Schuster to publish The Tyranny of Big Tech. That was before […]
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 […]
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. […]
The ethics of food journalism
By: Kasey Hullett Entering into the world of food criticism and review is more precarious than I thought. Recently, there has been an outbreak of lawsuits from bad reviews on not only Yelp but blogs as well. In California, a groundbreaking law was set forth to protect Yelpers from defamation charges. You would think that […]
Trust Your Gut: How does background affect intuitive decision making?
By Cara Walker I felt my whole body tense as I stole several glances to my right and my left. Secretively, I hunched over my desk and made long, deliberate marks with my pen. L…K…E…I tried desperately to recall the shape of the final loop of the “R” in my mom’s signature. My chest was […]
NFL’s Greg Hardy photos require journalistic responsibility when advocating
By Kevin Connell For many, the images were the final straw. Eighteen months after Greg Hardy was arrested – and later convicted – on domestic violence charges, the photos showing the injuries he allegedly inflicted on former girlfriend Nicole Holder came to light. In the 47 photos released by Deadspin in November 2015, 45 show […]
Journalism has a duty to provide in-depth information
By Laura D. Testino The news never stops. Twitter never stops. And Joe Weisenthal never stops. Weisenthal, known online as @TheStalwart, left his position as executive editor of Business Insider a year ago today for a television position with Bloomberg Media. While with Business Insider, New York Magazine published an article about Weisenthal’s media consumption […]
How Immanuel Kant would kill trolls: A deontological approach to dealing with online comments
By Emily Williams The word “troll” used to refer to monsters in fairy tales living under bridges, but in the new age of the internet, troll has taken on a whole new meaning, as the monsters that live behind keyboards and terrorize comment sections on virtually every website. Dealing with trolls, and other maliciously inclined […]
In defense of the photos of the lifeless Syrian boy
By Layton Dudley The cliché saying goes that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ The question in journalism is, in regards to ethics, when should the photo do the talking? Recently, an international photo surfaced that has caused controversy within the media. The photograph depicts a lifeless Syrian boy, named Aylan, only three years […]