The Babysitter's Club

If a picture is worth 1000 words, then an interview is worth an afternoon babysitting two teens.

According to an article from The Huffington Post, major news outlets are jockeying for the first interview with Amanda Knox with offers of babysitting Knox's two half sisters.

ABC, NBC, and CBS have all been questioned as whether they offered to look after the two girls during the trial.

While ABC's spokesperson replied with no comment, and NBC's and CBS's spokespeople denied the claims, Knox's father, Curt Knox, responded with a letter to the New York Post regarding the babysitting allegations. He stated in his letter that ABC and CBS provided rooms for his girls to stay in during the trial, and an NBC producer offered a room; however, he went on to state that no producer babysat his daughters.

These allegations, whether they are unfounded or not, pose a serious ethical dilemma to journalists every where. Quotes bring a human element into a story that news reporters can't do on their own.

Amanda Knox and other high-profile celebrities are people who readers want to hear from. Thus, due to Knox's interviewee status, her popularity can demand a price for her story.

Paying for an interview is unethical. If an interviewee doesn't want to tell his/her story without compensation, then it is up to journalists to compile a story using every other source at their disposal.

Although, the story may not feel as complete without Amanda Knox's quote but purchasing an interview is unethical to me. I believe that my credibility is worth more than a slumber party-sized pillow fight between babysitters in order to capitalize on Knox's passing 15 minutes of fame.

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericskiff/3415034468/

Read more...

Checking the Ethical Component of a Story

In an article discussing the new frontier in ethical journalism, Ghanaian journalist Prosper Yao Tsikata lays out four rules for making sure a story is morally ripe for publication.

The four criteria he describes are preponderance to evidence, the filtering process, the crystallizing evolution and finally, disgorgement.

In order to satisfy Preponderance to Evidence, Tsikata urges journalists to check and double check sources-- especially given the consideration that today, there are vast sources like the internet that can't always be taken at face-value.

Tsikata says that one of the most important steps in this process, especially when considering high-profile public figures, is "contacting the individual(s) involved in the issues and checking with them or their inner circles." Had the many journalists mistakenly reporting that Gabrielle Giffords had died checked within her inner circle, it is likely that they wouldn't have made such a serious mistake.

The second step is the Filtering Process. Here, journalists should flesh out their story and pay attention to whether or not the facts they have acquired follow logically from each other. They should fill in as many gaps in the logic as they can by doing their own fact-checking: comparing dates and financial figures, examining individuals involved, etc.

In the third step, which Tsikata calls the Crystallizing Evolution, journalists should act as utilitarians, and make sure that the benefits of releasing the story outweigh any personal issues surrounding the subject of the story. This consideration should have been applied to the recent situation regarding Steve Jobs' health- many journalists and shareholders took the stance that Jobs' health status should be available to the public at large. To me, and seemingly to Tsikata as well, Jobs' health is a personal issue and an ethical journalist would consider it as such.

Finally, Tsikata calls for journalists to consider Disgorgement. For Tsikata, the word means that once the beans are spilled and the full story is out, journalists should take back any statements that have proved to be inaccurate. Disgorgement is a bit of an unconventional term since it is usually applied to unethical gains in economics, but Tsikata successfully applies it to journalism.

It is important to distinguish between the positive properties of transparency in journalism and politics and the ethical dilemma that comes from trying to apply this same transparency to the lives of individuals. Tsikata's guide is helpful in this regard because it delineates ethical boundaries in journalism.

Photo credit: LucasBean.com via CreativeCommons.org

Read more...

Sympathy and respect

On the morning of Friday, Feb. 4 I was fortunate enough to see Aaron Thomas give his speech entitled "The Meaning of Courage: A Story of Family and Compassion" at this year's Iowa Newspaper Association convention. He is the son of the late Ed Thomas, coach of Aplington-Parkersburg high school.

As many are aware, a tornado hit and destroyed a significant portion of the town, and a relatively short time later Coach Thomas was shot and killed by a mentally disturbed player on his team.

One of the most interesting things to note about Thomas' presentation on Friday was his repeated thanks to the media for being polite and respecting his, his family's and the town's feelings in their coverage of this story.

Despite two relatively minor incidents with the press, Thomas was deeply thankful for the respect news people showed to those in deep mourning. Luckily, this instance was not one where the media was as intrusive into a private citizen's life as it may have been in the past.

There is a fine line journalists must draw between desire to get "the big story" and respect the people in that story as human beings. Having a deadline is hard, and meeting it is even harder sometimes, but no matter how different one journalist's idea of what sympathy or ethics might be, they must all agree to respect victims to the utmost of their ability.

Student journalists today absolutely have to be educated about journalism ethics and, even more than that, they must be taught to treat victims or relatives/friends of victims as human beings first and stories second.

There is usually an interesting human angle to most stories, but that "angle" involves people with hopes, dreams and emotions just like the journalist's. The day a journalist forgets that fact, he or she can no longer completely fulfill the purpose of journalism.



Photo Credit - Anthony Easton via Creative Commons

Read more...

Journalism Ethics 101

While anyone can be a journalist nowadays, it doesn't mean that everyone has or understands the core principles of journalism.

The Next Ethics? Media Ethics Workshop, hosted by Kent State University on Sept. 16, gathered skilled journalists, college professors and prospect journalism students to discuss the current newswriting and reporting practices in today's media.

Among the distinguished speakers at the conference was Arianna Huffington,Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief of the Huffinton Post. In her speech, Ms. Huffington acknowledged that journalism practices were changing and, due to the introduction of new technology, forthcoming journalists needed to adapt to a new journalism environment.

Ms. Huffington encourages the new era of journalism through the use of blogs or social media. However, she believes that "today's journalists should re-visit and learn from the old-fashion journalism." In other words, journalists today should keep in mind the true essential ethics behind Journalism as presented by the Society of Professional Journalists:

- Journalists should demonstarte honesty, fairness, and audacity when gathering information and reporting news.

- Journalists should be respectful and cautious about different social groups and sources of information.

- There should be no strings attached between journalists and sources in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

- A journalist should be responsible for a proper delivery of news and generate a dialogue among audiences.

Although the medium by which news are delivered might change, the ethics of Journalism should remain intact and put into practice more often.

Read more...