Decade of media ethics: Sydney Smith gives an overview of major issues and trends from 2010-2019.
The term “fake news” rises in political reporting. Hoaxes, lawsuits, retractions and firings crop up in covering the president.
The last half of the decade saw an apparent decrease in plagiarism and fabrication cases.
Truth about Kathy Scruggs: Hagit Limor writes that the “Richard Jewell” movie portrayal of a deceased reporter is “so skewed it would define libel if this was a piece of journalism instead of a piece of fiction created in Hollywood.” Besmirching a hard-working reporter.
Janet Cooke’s world: Every student journalist should know about Cooke, the only reporter ever forced to return a Pulitzer Prize because her story about an eight-year-old heroin addict was a hoax.
Bill Green, the Washington Post’s ombudsman, wrote a blistering report on the Post’s editorial lapses that is a model of journalism accountability. It set the standard for ombudsmen. From the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists archives.
Hurricane hoaxes: “Hurricanes, just like floods or earthquakes, are commonly surrounded by hoaxes and might trigger the sharing of false information,” writes Cristina Tardaguila.
Make sure you know where to find official information.
Recognizing satire: “People have long mistaken satire for real news,” write R. Kelly Garrett, Robert Bond and Shannon Poulsen.
Satirical newspapers found to be quoted as factual. Democrats and republicans fooled. Americans think made-up news is a significant problem.
Stickers warn of false news: Some fact-checkers around the world developed sticker warnings, writes Cristina Tardaguila.
“For now, they seem to be a nice (and colorful) way to tell friends and family they are spreading low-quality information — and should think twice before sharing content,” she writes.
Fixing contrived news: A Pew Research poll finds Americans think made-up news is a bigger problem than terrorism, violent crime and climate change.
They blame political leaders and activists for misleading news, but expect journalists to fix the problem.
April fooling: The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists once got a call from a reporter asking if it would be ethical to write an April Fools’ Day story in the tradition of the late hoaxer George Plimpton. See the advice here.
The truth sandwich: Repeating a lie helps it to live on, writes Craig Newmark.
“I predict that, in 2019, news organizations will start to institute new reporting methods to avoid being complicit. Tactics may include adopting the ‘truth sandwich,’ which means covering a lie by presenting the truth first and then following that lie with a fact-check, as well as increasing newsroom capacity to check claims for accuracy in real time, prior to publishing a story.”
Spotting fake Facebook posts: Keith Collins and Sheera Frenkel report that Facebook discovered hundreds of fake pages and user accounts this summer.
The New York Times reporters show real and deceptive posts, asking if you can tell which is fake. It isn’t easy.
The latest influence campaigns imitated post by legitimate pages and groups on Facebook that advocate political beliefs, they report, “amking it difficult to tell what was a genuine post and what was not.” Such campaigns also are known as online disinformation.
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 