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About cbukro

Casey Bukro was inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 2008 for outstanding contributions to Chicago journalism, after a 45 year career with the Chicago Tribune. Bukro retired from the Tribune in 2007 as overnight editor. He had pioneered in environmental reporting and in 1970 became the first full-time environment specialist at a major metropolitan newspaper in the United States and covered major developments on that beat for 30 years. He won the newspaper’s highest editorial award in 1967 for a series on Great Lakes pollution. The Society of Professional Journalists awarded Bukro its highest honor, the Wells Key, in 1983 for writing that organization’s first code of ethics. He is a past president of SPJ’s national ethics committee and a past president of the Chicago Headline Club. Bukro graduated with bachelor and master degrees from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. In 1998, he received the Northwestern University Alumni Association’s alumni service award for 17 years of volunteer service to the university. He has lectured in environmental journalism and journalism ethics at Northwestern, the University of Chicago, DePaul University, Loyola University Chicago, Columbia College, Columbia University and others. Before joining the Tribune staff, Bukro worked at the former City News Bureau of Chicago and the Janesville Gazette, Janesville, Wis.

AI Scandal Hits Wyo. Paper

Case Study, , ,

http://www.ctvnews.ca image

By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

In the first known case of deliberate falsification using artificial intelligence in journalism, a novice reporter for the Cody Enterprise has resigned and the editor apologized.

The futuristic technology in this case fabricated quotes attributed to various people, including Wyoming’s governor, who had not been interviewed by the reporter, Aaron Pelczar, a 40-year-old new to journalism.

It is the latest scandal in the troubled history of a new technology that blurs the difference between what is real and what is not.

Generative artificial intelligence of the kind being used in journalism grows by being fed information created by others, an algorithmic  learning process. In essence, AI is a copycat, a plagiarist and mistakes it makes are called hallucinations.

No hallucination

The story Pelczar wrote with the assistance of artificial intelligence was no hallucination, though it did turn out to be a nightmare for the Cody Enterprise.

“AI was allowed to put words that were never spoken into stories,” admitted Enterprise Editor Chris Bacon, and apologized that he “failed to catch” the false quotes.

“They’re very believable quotes,” said Bacon, pointing out that people he spoke to during his review of Pelczar’s articles said the quotes sounded like something they would say, but they never actually talked to Pelczar.

Did not intend to misquote

Upon resigning, Pelczar said he never intended to misquote anyone.

This controversy began with an investigation by a reporter for a competing newspaper, CJ Baker of the Powell Tribune. 

A reporter for 15 years, Baker noticed that several of Pelczar’s articles seemed oddly worded, including one that ended with instructions on how to write a news story, which had no bearing on the article.

In another oddity characteristic of generative AI, the questionable stories added incorrect roles and titles to people.

Calling people

Baker began calling people named in Pelczar’s articles who were quoted, and discovered none had spoken to Pelczar, though the quotes sounded plausible, which is characteristic of generative AI text.

Baker met with Pelczar and his editor with evidence that at least seven people who were quoted were never interviewed.

“It’s never comfortable to confront someone, but it’s especially uncomfortable when it involves colleagues in the media world,” Baker said. “What helped is that the editor at the Cody Enterprise, Chris Bacon, was gracious and receptive.”

My job

In an editorial, Bacon wrote: “It matters not that the false quotes were the apparent error of a hurried rookie reporter that trusted AI. It was my job.” He also apologized to the governor and others who were falsely quoted.

“I will eat crow with what dignity I can muster,” he wrote, “though pheasant tastes much better. I will do better.” He was working on an AI policy for the newspaper and as part of its hiring practice, “this will be a pre-employment topic of discussion.”

Megan Barton, Cody Enterprise publisher, wrote on the paper’s website: “AI isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially in our line of work. We take extreme pride in the content that we put out to our community and we trust that the individuals hired to accurately write these stories are honest in gathering their information. So, you can imagine our surprise when we learned otherwise….

“Plagiarism is something every media outlet has had to correct at some point or another. It’s the ugly part of the job. But, a company willing to right (or quite literally write) those wrongs is a reputable one. So, take this as our lesson learned.”

Longer conversations

Barton wrote that the newspaper now had a system to recognize AI-generated stories and will “have longer conversations about how AI-generated stories are not acceptable.”

It’s not the first time the media have been roiled by artificial intelligence, as well as falsification and plagiarism. Last year, Sports Illustrated came under fire for product reviews published under fake author names with fake author profiles.

Kelly McBride, senior vice president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said of the Cody episode: “This sort of deception by a reporter is very similar to the old-fashioned ethical failures of plagiarism and fabrication. It’s what Jayson Blair did at The New York Times more than 20 years ago. He got caught when a reporter at a smaller paper called him out for plagiarizing her work.”

Newsrooms learn

Newsrooms can learn from such situations, she added.

Alex Mahadevan, also of the Poynter Institute, said it’s easy to create AI-generated stories: “These generative AI chatbots are programmed to give you an answer, no matter whether that answer is complete garbage or not.”

Humans must be alert enough to notice if the chatbots are deceiving them. In an ironic historic twist, the Cody Enterprise controversy grew out of an area famous for tall stories and western lore.

Cody Enterprise founded

The Cody Enterprise was founded in 1899 by William Fredrick Cody, otherwise known as Buffalo Bill, a showman most widely known for  Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a traveling show featuring battles between American Indians and cowboys and soldiers. It toured across the United States and in Europe.

Cody, Wyoming, population 10,028, also is named for Buffalo Bill. The twice-weekly newspaper’s circulation is 4,675.

Though born in Iowa territory, Cody started his legend when he was only 23, performing in shows with cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars.

Pony Express

At the age of 15, so the story goes, Cody became a rider for the legendary Pony Express, an express mail delivery service. And he claimed to be a trapper, bullwacker, wagonmaster, stage coach driver and hotel manager.

Historians have had difficulty documenting that, saying some of it might have been fabricated for publicity.

This much is known, during the Civil War, he served the Union from 1863 to the end of the war in 1865. Later, he was a civilian scout for the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1872. He lost the award when it was rescinded in 1917 for 910 recipients, many of whom were not in the military.

Medal reinstated

Congress reinstated the Medal of Honor for Cody and four other civilian scouts in 1989.

Cody got his nickname, Buffalo Bill, after the Civil War, when he got a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with American bison meat. Code reportedly killed 4,282 buffalo in 18 months in 1867 and 1868.

Cody cut a rugged figure, dressed in primitive frontier garb, with a mustache and a long chin beard. His fame grew with the help of American dime novel author Edward Zane Carroll Judson, whose pen name was Ned Buntline, who was no stranger to fanciful writing.

Cody’s adventures

Buntline published a story based on Cody’s adventures, largely invented by Buntline. He followed that with a highly successful novel, Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen, which was serialized in the Chicago Tribune.

Sequels followed and an enduring legend was born.

Like Buffalo Bill himself, artificial intelligence is seen in different ways by various people, a modern miracle or some kind of media doomsday machine.

Different versions

Where journalism is concerned, artificial intelligence seems like one of those Japanese movies in which several observers of an event tell different versions of what they saw.

Writing for the Brookings Institution, Courtney C. Radsch asks: “Can journalism survive artificial intelligence?” In the past 20 years, she points out, the U.S. lost two-thirds of its newspaper journalist jobs – jobs that AI cannot fill.

Despite that, she writes, AI advancements continue the “platformization” of journalism and enabling a handful of technology firms to maintain their control over our information channels.

Double down

“Journalism can only survive if the news industry unites to double down on journalists and demand a framework in their deals with tech giants that benefits journalism in the public interest.” It depends, she adds, on whether journalism can adapt its business models to the AI era.

With AI, “innovation in journalism is back,” writes David Caswell for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

“Following a peak of activity in the mid 2010s, the idea of fundamentally reinventing how news might be produced and consumed had gradually become less fashionable, giving way to incrementalism, shallow rhetoric and in some cases even unapologetic ‘innovation exhaustion.’

Urgent focus

“No longer. The public release of ChatGPT in late November of 2022 demonstrated capabilities with such obvious and profound potential impact for journalism that AI-driven innovation is now the urgent focus of the senior leadership teams in almost every newsroom. The entire news industry is asking itself, ‘what’s next?’

Jack Shafer, writing in Politico, said artificial intelligence is poised to change the news business at every level.

“Used effectively, it promises to make news more accurately and timely. Used frivolously, it will spawn an ocean of spam.” The future has not yet been written, says Shafer. AI in the newsroom will be only as bad or good as its developers and users make it.

Times copyright suit

The New York Times sees artificial intelligence as a thief of intellectual property. The nation’s foremost newspaper in December sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, opening a new front in an increasingly intense legal battle over the unauthorized use of published work to train artificial intelligence technologies. The Times is the first major American media organization to sue the companies.

“Defendants seek to free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism,” the complaint says, accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of “using The Times’s content without payment to create products that substitute for The Times and steal audiences away from it.”

OpenAI said The Times was not telling the whole story.

In a substack, journalism veteran James O’Shea charges that prophets of artificial intelligence are meeting their own worst enemy: Themselves.

“From the manipulation of posts on Elon Musk’s careless X platform to the dishonest bots exposed by NewsGuard on its Reality Check service, misuse of the AI technology pollutes the promise touted by its champions.”

The objective

This talk of the promise of artificial intelligence prompts a question: How did all of this get started and what was the objective?

Like much of today’s advanced technology, it started with something that seems like science fiction. A history of artificial intelligence says it began with ancient myths and stories of artificial beings with human intelligence.

Quests attempting to describe the process of human thinking led to the programmable digital computers in the 1940s.

That device inspired a handful of scientists to discuss the possibility of building an electronic brain.

The field of AI research was founded at a workshop held on the campus of Dartmouth College in the summer of 1956.

Scientists predicted that a machine as intelligent as a human would exist in no more than a generation, but it became obvious that researchers grossly underestimated the difficulty of the project, leading investors to become disillusioned and withdrawing funding in a time known as an “AI winter.”

But powerful computer hardware and breakthrough technology brought us to where we are today, with machines that think in ways that scientists do not fully understand. And they have “hallucinations.”

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

Death March Survivor

Case Study, ,

Mario Tonelli before and after Bataan Death March — iavmuseum.org image

By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

The definition of hero is a person endowed with great courage and strength, one noted for feats of courage or nobility, or someone who risked or sacrificed their life.

The term is bandied about freely these days, sometimes given to people who overcome rather ordinary challenges of life.

Sometimes we don’t even recognize those who deserve to be called heroes, in part because they often don’t want to talk about it.

For me, Mario “Motts” Tonelli was one of them. It was a brief encounter when I was either a young reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago or early in my career as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

I vaguely remember an aging and long-time Cook County official, a husky Italian-American who grew up playing in Chase Park in Chicago’s north side Uptown Community.

I never heard of the guy and figured, unfairly, that he was just another political hack. He was soft-spoken, wearing a suit and didn’t seem to have much to say, in contrast to the usual blustering Cook County politicians. But his eyes were sharp.

Quiet man

Only later did I discover who this quiet man really was, and about his life in World War Two. After that terrible war, Tonelli came home and in 1946, at the age of 30, became the youngest person to be elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners. A republican in a bastion of democratic politics, Tonelli served eight years on that board.

All told, he served for 42 years in Cook County politics and government, including, according to press accounts, Cook County’s top environmental protection official. He retired in 1988.

Those accomplishments alone count as outstanding life achievements. But they really are not the only reasons Mario Tonelli’s name was widely recognized in Chicago and nationally.

Mario Tonelli was a survivor of the Bataan Death March, one of the few lucky ones chosen by chance and circumstance to live while thousands of others died while captives of Japanese troops in the Philippines.

An ordeal

What, if anything, prepares a man for such an ordeal? Looking back on Tonelli’s life history, none of it can be said to be ordinary. It was as remarkable for its heights of glory, his good luck, as its depths of misery, his bad luck.

Tonelli’s parents were Italian immigrants Celi and his wife Lavania. Misfortune touched the boy early.

At the age of 6, while careening wildly in an ally as boys will do past barrels of burning garbage, a friend bumped into one of those barrels, showering Tonelli with flaming debris, severely burning his legs and body. When he woke in a hospital, a doctor whispered to Tonelli’s father that the boy might never walk again.

Celi, the father of four children and a former stone quarry worker in Northern Italy, insisted otherwise. He built a wheeled platform on which Mario could travel and exercise, leading to a few exploratory steps, then more as he shuffled around the neighborhood.

Second home

Nearby Chase Park became his second home and training ground, climbing the monkey bars and learning to run again.

At Our Lady of Lourdes Grammar School, he excelled in basketball, track, baseball and football. He took varsity letters in nearly every sport at DePaul Academy. At one track meet, Tonelli placed first in pole vault, shot put, high jump and the 440-yard dash. His coach called him a “one-man team.”

Mario was gaining a reputation as a sport phenomenon. His parents did not quite understand this American fascination with sports, but they recognized that their ruggedly handsome son was gaining respect, especially important at a time when Italian immigrants were cursed.

Courted by universities

Dozens of universities courted Tonelli. He wanted to attend the University of Southern California. But Elmer Layden, Notre Dame’s football coach, came to the Tonelli apartment in Chicago with an Italian-speaking priest. While Layden spoke with the father in the living room, the priest spoke with his mother in the kitchen.

Afterward, Lavania told her son: “You’re going to Notre Dame. It’s a Catholic school, and you won’t be far from home.” Telling how the decision was made, young Tonelli added with a laugh, “and that was it.”

Now a brawny 200-pound fullback standing 5-11, Mario was homesick. Football practice was demanding. He missed his parents. He missed Chicago. One afternoon, a priest, John O’Hara, noticed the lonesome boy, and offered to talk. Mario poured his heart out and the priest listened.

Becoming friends

Over the next weeks and months, they became friends. O’Hara became Notre Dame’s president and a cardinal. Mario became a powerful starting fullback in his junior year, then a star in his senior year.

They nicknamed him the “Pony Express” because he always delivered. He was a tough kid who didn’t talk much.

A highlight in Tonelli’s Notre Dame career, one proving momentous later, came in 1937. Notre Dame’s stadium was packed with 40,000 fans watching a season finale between the Fighting Irish and their arch rival, the University of Southern California, the school Tonelli originally wanted to attend.

Number 58

With the score tied nearing the final minutes of the fourth quarter, Tonelli, wearing number 58 on his jersey, ran 68-yards toward the Trojan goal line, reaching the eight-yard line before he was tackled. On the next play, Tonelli made the game-winning touchdown to roaring cheers, winning the national championship.

In 1939, after the College All-Star game, Tonelli bought a gold Notre Dame graduation ring with a diamond in the center to mark his blazing university sports career, a class ring engraved with his initials and the name of the university.

After graduation, Tonelli joined the Chicago Cardinals football team, which paid him $4,000 a year. Again wearing number 58 on his jersey, he played against the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers. His final game as a Cardinal at the time was on March 10, 1941 against the Chicago Bears, which the Bears won 31-20.

Enlists in army

Then the young athlete made a decision that would drastically alter his life. Tonelli enlisted in the army in 1941 five days after marrying his darkhaired sweetheart Mary and living on Wilson Avenue in Chicago with his bride.

It seemed sensible at the time. Germany unleashed a war in Europe and young men were enlisting for one-year hitches. Tonelli reasoned he could join the military, meet his obligation and be back home in a year.

“One year and I’m out, boys,” he told his Cardinal teammates. “I’ll be back knocking you in the head before you can kick the mud off your cleats.”

A staff sergeant

Reporting for duty at Camp Wallace, Texas, in March 1941, the football phenom eventually became a staff sergeant assigned to the 200th Coast Artillery. With just a short time to go in his enlistment, Tonelli was stationed at Clark Field on Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

“They woke us up about 5 o’clock in the morning and they told us that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and we’d probably be next on the agenda. I was just coming out of the mess hall and I saw the formation of the bombers. At first, someone thought they were American planes, but they weren’t. They bombed the fields.”

Japanese aircraft also strafed American bombers and fighter planes parked closely together on Clark Field, destroying many of them. Caught far from anti-aircraft guns, Tonelli reportedly grabbed a rifle and futilely shot at the Japanese aircraft overhead in an attempt to fight back.

Japanese attack

A force of 75,000 Imperial Japanese Army soldiers attacked the Philippines, touching off a three-month battle on Jan. 7, 1942 with 15,000 American and 90,000 Filipino forces in what became known as the Battle of Bataan. They retreated into Bataan, a steamy jungle of rice paddies where tropical temperatures reached 110 degrees.

Tonelli and the others fought while supplies of food, medicine and ammunition dwindled.

On April 9, 1942, the weak, starving and exhausted American and Filipino forces surrendered to the Japanese, by order of Major General Edward P. King, who accepted personal responsibility for the surrender, perhaps to save lives but unwittingly condemning thousands of soldiers to their deaths because of what happened next.

Bataan Death March

That was what became known as the Bataan Death March, an unimaginable atrocity even by brutal wartime standards.

Japanese troops hardened by the Battle of Bataan began rounding up prisoners in the towns of Mariveles and Bagac. Reports differ, but some 60,000 American and Filipino military men were taken prisoner, along with about 38,000 civilians caught up in the battle.

Soon after being taken prisoner, Tonelli recalled seeing a Japanese soldier carrying a decapitated human head on the top of a long pole.

“We’re in trouble,” Tonelli recalled saying. Some Japanese commanders considered them “captives” who could be executed, and not prisoners of war entitled to humanitarian treatment.

Sweltering heat

The Bataan Death March on April 9, 1942, was an effort by the Japanese to move all the captives about 60 miles, forcing them to walk without food or water to a rail line in sweltering heat, board oven-like steel cattle cars until they were packed so tightly the dead could not fall during a ride lasting an hour, then walk again to the final destination, a place known as Camp O’Donnell.

The relocation took seven days, and because of severe physical abuse and wanton killings, hundreds of prisoners died each day. Those who dropped from exhaustion were shot, beheaded with swords or bayoneted. Trucks drove over some who fell on the road.

On the first stop in the march, Japanese soldiers ordered the captives to empty their pockets and surrender items of value, like jewelry or keepsakes. Those found carrying Japanese money or souvenirs were shot in the belief they were taken from the Japanese.

Beatings and killings

Knocking out men’s teeth for gold fillings was common, along with random beatings and killing prisoners indiscriminately. Mile upon mile, they were taunted, tortured and slammed with rifle butts. Civilian Filipinos who took pity on the column of ragged, walking prisoners and tried to throw food to them were killed.

It was during his army and prisoner days that Tonelli acquired a nickname, Motts, although its meaning and why it was bestowed on him is not explained in public records.

So he became Mario “Motts” Tonelli. In a life marked by extreme and unusual circumstances, even as a prisoner of war that continued.

Added to Tonelli lore is an encounter he had with a Japanese army officer.

The gold ring

At some point on the march, one of the Japanese soldiers noticed the gold Notre Dame class ring Tonelli wore. Jabbing a bayonet toward the ring, the soldier demanded it. Tonelli hesitated.

“Give it to him, Motts,” called one of the prisoners. “Or he’ll kill you. It’s not worth dying for.”

Reluctantly, Tonelli twisted the ring off his finger and handed it to the threatening soldier.

Japanese officer

A few minutes later, Tonelli noticed a Japanese officer talking to the thieving soldier. Then the officer walked up to Tonelli and asked, in perfect English, “Did one of my soldiers take something from you?”

“Yes,” answered Tonelli. “My graduation ring from Notre Dame.”

The officer reached into his pocket and took out a ring.

“Is this it?” the officer asked. “Yes,” answered Tonelli. “That’s my ring.”

Handing it back to Tonelli, the officer said: “I was educated in America. At the University of Southern California. I know a little about the famous Notre Dame football team. In fact, I watched you beat USC in 1937. You were a hell of a player. I know how much this ring means to you, so I wanted to get it back to you.”

Good luck wish

With that, the officer turned and walked away, saying: “I’d advise you to put that away. Someone is going to take it from you.”  Tonelli recalled years later, “He gave me my ring back and wished me good luck.”

Several versions of this encounter exist. The dialogue is slightly different, but all versions agree that the Japanese officer recovered the ring, acknowledged Tonelli’s victory over USC and returned the ring. It was one of the rare examples of Japanese kindness toward the prisoners.

Tonelli’s Notre Dame class ring

Slaughter resumes

Minutes afterward, the  slaughter known as the Bataan Death March resumed. For the rest of his time as a prisoner, Tonelli kept the ring in a metal soap case, looking at it secretly to remind him of home.

Nearly 650 Americans and 10,000 Filipinos died on the Bataan Death March, according to published figures, which vary. At Camp O’Donnell, several hundred more prisoners died each day.

Tonelli spent the next two and a half years at three prison camps, taking beatings at each of them. He and other prisoners worked as slaves clearing roads and chopping wood for their captors while living in filthy conditions. Grave-digging was another duty assigned to Tonelli because 30 to 45 prisoners were dying each day.

Rice with worms

Meals were bowls of rice or rice soup filled with worms. Some men captured and ate monkeys and iguanas.

Months passed as Tonelli and others were wracked by tropical illnesses that brought fever and pain.

Then it got worse. In the summer of 1944, Tonelli and other prisoners were forced into the dark hold of what became known as a Japanese “hell ship,” a merchant freighter. It was a harrowing 62-day journey to mainland Japan stalked by American bombers. Three ships filled with captives were sunk by pilots who were not aware of their cargo, killing thousands of American soldiers.

Driven mad

On the ship, buckets were lowered to the men to use as toilets. Once emptied in the ocean, the buckets were lowered again with rice to eat. Driven mad, soldiers would climb up and throw themselves into the ocean.

Upon landing in Japan, Tonelli ended up in a work camp near Yokkaichi where he labored for 10 months. Weak from disease, starvation and weight loss, Tonelli once again was transferred, this time to a scrap metal plant in June 1945.

There, according to another episode in Tonelli lore, he wobbled to a table where a Japanese officer was giving prison garb and identification numbers to prisoners. Tonelli looked at the number, and it was 58, the number he wore during his football days.

“Something seemed to go right through me,” Tonelli recalled. “And I thought I’m going to make it.”

Guards flee

Two atomic bombs convinced the Japanese to surrender, and the guards watching Tonelli and others fled. As Tonelli told the story, American bombers dropped small parachutes with packs of cigarettes and messages saying: “Hostilities have ceased. Will see you soon.” That was followed by another run dropping 55-gallon drums full of C-rations and medicine. Prisoners opened them and ate themselves sick.

Tonelli spent 42 months as a prisoner. His weight fell to 98-pounds and he suffered from malaria, dysentery, scurvy and beriberi during that time. Photos showed him sunken-eyed and practically a skeleton of a man. Of 10,000 Americans taken prisoner in the Philippines, an estimated 4,000 returned to the United States.
The former prisoner took a steamer to San Francisco, then promptly boarded a train to Chicago. 

No celebration

“When I came back, there was no celebration,” he said. “My mother, dad, brother, sister and wife were at the station. That was all.” He spent the first afternoon shopping with his wife.

Adding to the lore, while still a hospital out-patient, Tonelli signed a contract with the Chicago Cardinals two months after being liberated.

“I’m in shape,” he told reporters. “I weigh 184 now,” which might have been an exaggeration. “That’s only six pounds under my old playing weight,” adding that his life as a football player helped him survive the death march. “You had to be in good shape to take that treatment.”

Skip that

But that is about all he would say about it. Asked for more details, he’d say: “Let’s skip all that.”

Cardinals owner Charles Bidwill knew that Tonelli had to play one more professional game to qualify for a pension. Tonelli was still struggling with malaria and no doubt weakened by years of punishment and abuse. But he was eager to be in the game again.

So after a five-year interruption, Tonelli suits up again, pulling on his pads and helmet and lacing up his high top leather cleats.

It was the game on Oct. 28, 1945 at Green Bay against the Packers, described in detail by the Chicago Sun-Times on Feb. 3, 2002. It started on the front page with headlines reading: “Motts Tonelli’s life in football and war: Hell and glory.” The story filled six full pages.

Now he was in the tunnel, the story says, waiting to burst out with the team onto the field to the roar of fans.

Get in there

The game begins and Tonelli waits his turn, until the coach says: “All right Tonelli, get in there.” Pulling on his helmet, Tonelli trots to the huddle. With a sharp clap, the players walk toward the line and settle. The play is coming to him.

The ball is in his gut. Pads thump and men fall. Tonelli sees an opening, but he’s hit hard by a tackler and slammed to the turf. No gain.

He goes into the huddle again, takes the ball  when the action starts, charges toward the line and is knocked to the ground again. Another fullback is called in and Tonelli is taken out.

Lucky man

It didn’t matter. For Motts, it was like being back from the dead. He could look around the stadium and think, “I’m a lucky man.”

But that was not the end of his football career. In 1946, he played for the Chicago Rockets of the new American Football League. He just would not give up, a trait that got him through the war.

Tonelli died on Jan. 7, 2003 in Chicago at the age of 86.

This is the story of one man’s misery in a sea of misery and the capricious nature of warfare, where one man survives while thousands around him die.

Some called Tonelli a hero, but more accurately he struggled just to stay alive. He was gifted with unusual athletic prowess, but, like many victims of war, he was denied the use of that gift and a life he would have had otherwise as a professional football player.

Today’s wars

And how different is that from wars today between Russia and Ukraine and the Israeli-Hamas conflict? Or any war?  There too, are carnage and atrocities.

 As strange as it might sound, there are rules even for warfare, called the Geneva Conventions.

And there is ethics, defined as a system of moral principles and values.

A war crime

The Bataan Death March eventually was seen as a war crime, a violation of those rules. Several Japanese army officers were tried on war crimes charges, convicted and executed.

Later in life, Tonelli continued to say little about his wartime experiences. “If I told everything, no one would believe it,” he said. “It was that awful.”

But he became passionate about observing Memorial Day, and regretted public indifference to the sacrifices that Memorial Day is intended to celebrate. 

An observance

“Memorial Day originally was for the dead soldiers,” he observed. “Today, people are relaxing. People don’t think of the day as it’s supposed to be. It’s just a day off. But it’s really about the sadness of young guys being killed. That’s what I wish we could all take time to remember.”

This tribute to Tonelli is intended to atone for that long-ago failure to recognize who he really was and that after almost four years of brutal torment, he went on to four decades of public service. How easily I had dismissed him. He taught me to get to know people a little better.

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

Conflict of Interest Revisited

Case Study, , , , , , ,

scrippsmediaethicsblogspot.com image

By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

The beauty and serenity of a garden owned by a professional painter with colorful ideas seem safe topics to write about.

That’s what a freelancer thought when she pitched that kind of story to a magazine editor in Seattle.

The editor liked the idea, until she learned that the painter/gardener is the freelancer’s aunt. The editor fears an article might be seen as a pitch for the artist’s work, and therefore a conflict of interest.

The freelancer asked David Ozar, an AdviceLine adviser, how to respond to that concern.

“I explained that the ethical question is whether a conflicting interest is interfering (or is likely to interfere) with the professional’s judgment in a way that would harm those the professional is serving (that is the readers.)

“So is the relationship to her aunt likely to impact the journalist’s judgment that the garden is newsworthy in the relevant sense and is the author describing it accurately rather than ‘puffing it up?’”

A beautiful garden

The freelancer replied that it is a beautiful garden by any standard and it shows the artist’s skills can enhance a garden; but there is nothing in the description of the garden to pitch the artist’s other work. Also, the article would be accompanied by photos so readers could judge for themselves whether the garden was outstanding.

“We also talked about transparency,” said Ozar, “that is that the author should mention in some appropriate way that the artist is her aunt so the readers can take that into account in their judgment of the garden.”

Conflicts of interest is an ethics issue often raised by journalists who contact AdviceLine for guidance. An article written previously about the topic by another AdviceLine adviser is among those visited most often by journalists searching the AdviceLine archives.

An “open concept“

Given that interest, here’s that article, written by Nancy Matchett, who pointed out that definitions of conflicts of interest can be elusive and confusing, making it an “open concept.”

The article was titled: Conflict of interest: What does it mean?

By Nancy Matchett

A reporter who covers town meetings wonders whether it is appropriate to pursue a relationship with a councilmember’s daughter.

A community activist learns that the editor of the local newspaper plans to run for town supervisor, and asks whether this is OK.

An editor discovers that one of her reporters is covering an issue he previously wrote editorials about, and wants to check whether her instinct to give the story to someone else is correct.

And a publisher posts a notice that “no anti-fracking info [is] welcome,” overturning the paper’s previous policy of printing flyers on both sides of the issue. This prompts at least one reporter to resign, and she wants to know whether we share her concern that the new policy poses a threat to journalistic integrity.

A general question

All of these AdviceLine cases raise the general question, “What counts as a conflict of interest?” Interestingly, the SPJ code is relatively silent on this.

It does say that journalists should “avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived,”and “disclose unavoidable conflicts.” But the code does not provide further details about what would make a conflict unavoidable, nor does it offer a precise definition of what it means to say a conflict of interest exists.

This is not a criticism of the code itself; it is a reason why ethical professionals sensibly seek advice from time to time.

Conflict of interest is an example of an “open concept.” While it’s possible to give some textbook examples, there is no single definition that adequately covers all cases.

A family resemblance

At best, there is what the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called a “family resemblance” among the various situations in which the concept is appropriately used. When dealing with an open concept, testing your thinking against other professionals’ reactions is one of the best ways to ensure that you have fully understood what the concept means.

Whether a real conflict exists will also depend on facts about the particular individual whose interests potentially conflict. All of us have different abilities to bracket off our emotional attachments and understand conflicting points of view. So while one reporter might be able to draw a bright line between objective reporting and editorial work, another might find it impossible to report seriously on the arguments made by those with whom he disagrees.

One of the things AdviceLine respondents try to do is make sure callers are attending to this kind of detail. But even when it’s plausible to say that only the journalist herself knows whether a real conflict exists (the first three cases above could be examples of this), the need to avoid perceived conflicts of interest remains.

Fighting temptation

Why should journalists avoid perceived conflicts of interest even when no real conflict exists? The answer comes from reflection about the profession’s societal role. The average citizen isn’t in a position to know which reporters and editors can fight which forms of temptation.

And even the most seasoned journalist occasionally might be mistaken about his or her own ability to resist. To protect the profession’s integrity, it’s better for everyone involved if journalists avoid anything that looks remotely like conflict of interest. Only then can journalists and readers alike be confident that the profession is fulfilling its broader obligation to seek and report the truth.

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

Dilemmas, Difficult Choices Again

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By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

One of the most frequently visited articles in the Ethics for Journalists AdviceLine archives was written in 2015 by Nancy J. Matchett, a former AdviceLine adviser. Titled “Dilemmas and Difficult Choices,” her article explained how to tell the difference between them.

Much has happened in the world and in the journalism universe since that article was written nine years ago. So it’s fair to ask how well does her advice hold up in this new world of artificial intelligence, thriving social media and media management? Does it stand up to the test of time in recent cases shaking journalism and some of its leaders?

The news these days is loaded with ethical challenges involving selection, description and depiction of powerful world events, including human suffering and misery. Not only news managers and reporters, but readers, viewers and listeners are involved in constant interaction with information often based on what the public demands. It is a constant churning of evaluation and decision-making.

Here are some recent examples, involving people in the news and the news media audience – all involved to some degree in ethical choices or dilemmas:

*President Joe Biden is under intense pressure to drop out as a candidate for the 2024 presidential election after what was widely seen as a poor performance during his debate with former president Donald Trump, raising questions about Biden’s ability to govern because of his age and mental abilities. Especially pertinent is how voters react to that information. The decision by voters will change the course of history.

*The Israel-Hamas war caused Vox to ask “how to think morally” about killing thousands of innocent civilians.

*The U.S. Supreme Court is losing public trust because of recent rulings seen as breaking away from long-standing legal precedents and because of unethical conduct by justices who accept gifts and favors.

*Jeff Bezos, Washington Post owner, reportedly faces an ethical dilemma over his decision to hire a British journalist with a scandalous past as publisher and chief executive of the newspaper, over the opposition of the Post’s staff.

*Journalists are relying on artificial intelligence, looking for an objective and ultimate source of truth, but there are pitfalls to embracing this new technology. It spits out false information. When should you, or not, rely on AI tools?

Weigh these cases against Matchett’s guidance toward the difference between dilemma’s and difficult choices:

By Nancy J. Matchett

Professionals wrestling with ethical issues often describe themselves as facing dilemmas. But in many situations, what they may really be facing is another kind of ethically difficult choice.

In a genuine ethical dilemma, two or more principles are pitted head to head. No one involved seriously doubts that each principle is relevant and ought not to be thwarted. But the details of the situation make it impossible to uphold any one of the principles without sacrificing one of the others.

In a difficult ethical choice, by contrast, all of the principles line up on one side, yet the person still struggles to figure out precisely what course of action to take. This may be partly due to intellectual challenges: the relevant principles can be tricky to apply, and the person may lack knowledge of important facts. But difficult choices are primarily the result of emotional or motivational conflicts. In the most extreme form, a person may have very few doubts about what ethics requires, yet still desire to do something else.

The difference here is a difference in structure. In a dilemma, you are forced to violate at least one ethical principle, so the challenge is to decide which violation you can live with. In a difficult choice, there is a course of action that does not violate any ethical principle, and yet that action is difficult for you to motivate yourself to do. So the challenge is to get your desires to align more closely with what ethics requires.

Four principles

Are professional journalists typically faced with ethical dilemmas? This is unlikely with respect to the four principles encouraged by the SPJ Code (Seek Truth and Report It, Minimize Harm, Act Independently, and Be Accountable and Transparent). Of these, the first two are most likely to conflict, but so long as all sources are credible and facts have been carefully checked, it should be possible to report truth in a way that at least minimizes harm. Somewhat more difficult is determining which truths are so important that they ought to be reported. Reasonable people may disagree about how to answer this question, but discussion with fellow professionals will often help to clear things up. And even where disagreement persists, this has the structure of a difficult choice. No one doubts that all principles can be satisfied.

Of course, speaking truth to power is not an easy thing to do, even when doing so is clearly supported by the public’s need to know. So motivational obstacles can also get in the way of good decision-making. A small town journalist with good friends on the city council may be reluctant to report a misuse of public funds. It is not that he doesn’t understand his professional obligation to report the truth. He just doesn’t want to cause trouble for his friends.

Resisting temptation

This is why it can be useful to resist the temptation to classify every ethical issue as a dilemma. When facing a genuine dilemma you are forced, by the circumstances, to do something unethical. But wishing you could find some way out of a situation in which ethical principles themselves conflict is very different from being nervous or unhappy about the potential repercussions of doing something that is fully supported by all of those principles. Accurately identifying the latter situation as a difficult choice makes it easier to notice — and hence to avoid — the temptation to engage in unprofessional forms of rationalization. That doesn’t necessarily make the required action any easier to actually do, but getting clearer about why it is ethically justified might at least help to strengthen your resolve.

Ethical dilemmas are more likely to arise when professional principles conflict with more personal values. Here too, the SPJ Code can be useful, since being scrupulous about avoiding conflicts of interest and fully transparent in decision-making can mitigate the likelihood that such conflicts occur. But journalists who are careful about all of this may still find that issues occasionally come up. As the recent case of Dave McKinney shows, it can be very difficult to draw a bright line between personal and professional life. And the requirement to act independently can make it difficult to live up to some other kinds of ethical commitments.

Philosophical dispute

Whether this sort of personal/professional conflict counts as a genuine dilemma is subject to considerable philosophical dispute. The Ancient Greeks tended to treat dilemmas as pervasive, but modern ethics have mainly tried to explain them away. One strategy is to treat all ethical considerations as falling under a single moral principle (this is the approach taken by utilitarianism); another is to develop sophisticated tests to rank and prioritize among principles which might otherwise appear to conflict (this is the approach taken by deontology). If you are able to deploy one of these strategies successfully, then what may at first look like a professional vs. personal dilemma will turn out to be a difficult choice in the end. Still, many contemporary ethicists side with the Greeks in thinking such strategies will not always work.

If you are facing a genuine dilemma it is not obvious, from the point of view of ethics, what you should do. But here again, it can be helpful to see the situation for what it is. After all, even if every option requires you to sacrifice at least one ethical principle, each option enables you to uphold at least one principle too. In addition to alleviating potentially devastating forms of shame and guilt, reflecting on the structure of the situation can enhance your ability to avoid similar situations in the future. And if nothing else, being forced to grab one horn of a genuine dilemma can help you discover which values you hold most dear.

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

WaPo, A.I. and Ethics

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By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

The news lately has been full of accounts of journalists or media companies accused of acting unethically or taking liberties with the work of others.

Here’s how that shapes up.

The Washington Post publisher, Will Lewis, is accused of offering an NPR media reporter an interview if the reporter would avoid mentioning that Lewis was linked to a phone hacking scandal while working in Britain for Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids. 

Lewis also is accused of pressuring the Post’s executive editor to ignore any story that would make the publisher look bad, such as the phone hacking story. She published the story, then resigned, throwing the Post’s newsroom into chaos.

Fuel to the flames

Adding fuel to the flames, another former British journalist linked to questionable reporting practices, Robert Winnett, was hired to be the Post’s next editor. Winnett made a name for himself through undercover investigations and so-called “checkbook journalism,” paying people for information.

Both Lewis and Winnett were engaged in a kind of journalism popular in the United Kingdom, but generally shunned in the United States. Now they are leading The Washington Post, most famous for the Watergate exposures that led to President Richard Nixon resigning in 1974. The Post’s news staff published a report describing their grievances with Lewis.

American standards

Now that Lewis and Winnett are practicing journalism in the United States, they would be expected to conform to American standards, which are expressed in the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics.

That code begins with this preamble:

Preamble

Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity.

You can read the rest of the code here, and decide for yourself if Lewis and Winnett are acting with integrity, which the code says is basic to ethical journalism.

But the New Republic reports that Lewis and Winnett are harbingers of what comes next in American journalism: A British invasion intended to shake things up and get American media out of their economic doldrums.

Uncertainty

“In the midst of the uncertainty,” reports the magazine, “newsrooms owners have turned to an unexpected source of expertise on the U.S. media landscape: British journalists.”

The logic is clear: “As the journalism industry bleeds money, a fresh perspective could be just the thing to shake things up and bring some much-needed cash.”

This could also bring a major clash of cultures, considering the history of the British tabloid press. Their journalism ethics differ markedly, the New Republic points out, and “the British tabloid press are notoriously aggressive, unafraid to publish half-truths, purchase scoops, or even toe laws in pursuit of extreme sensationalism.”

In that way, Old Country values are coming to America, which is awakening to new technology.

Artificial intelligence

In a sign of the times, with the advent of new technology, artificial intelligence now is used to generate stories. This phenomenon is so new, it is not even recognized in the SPJ code of ethics, or how it can be unethical.

For example, a German celebrity tabloid published an A.I.-generated exclusive “interview” with a champion German racing car driver who was severely injured in a skiing accident in 2013. It contained fabricated quotes presented as real news.

Legal precedent

See how that turned out here for details. The case now is an early legal precedent signaling that such uses of artificial intelligence is unethical and deceptive.

Here’s another artificial intelligence quagmire in the publishing business that is now coming to light as the technology matures.

Creators of ChatGPT and other popular A.I. platforms used published works to “train” the new technologies, like feeding information to a growing child.

A new front

The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, which is another way to get in trouble ethically. The suit is seen as a new front on the increasingly intense legal battle over unauthorized use of published work.

“Defendants seek to free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism,” the complaint said, accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of “using The Times’s content without payment to create products that substitute for the Times and steal audiences away from it.”

The Times is among a small number of news outlets that have built successful business models from online journalism, while other newspapers and magazines have been crippled by the loss of readers to the internet.

Billions in damages

The defendants, said The Times, should be held responsible for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” related to the “unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.” It also asks the companies to destroy any chatbot models and training data that use copyrighted material from the Times.

A.I. firms depend on journalism, and some publishers have signed lucrative licensing agreements allowing A.I. firms to use their reports. “Accurate, well-written news is one of the most valuable sources” for their chatbots, which “need timely news and facts to get consumers to trust them,” writes Jessica Lessin in The Atlantic. But it’s making a deal with the devil as A.I. firms build products that reduce the need for consumers to click links to the original publishers.

This is one of those moments of technological growing pains, raising concerns about the boundaries of using intellectual property. We’ve seen it before with the advent of broadcast radio, television and digital file-sharing programs.

Time and the courts typically sort it out eventually.

In this ethicscape, a traveler must avoid making blatant bunders, avoiding the appearance of making blunders, and avoiding blunders that did not exist a short time ago, but now must be taken into account.

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

Chicago Like Camelot

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By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

Camelot was that legendary place where high ideals were honored and celebrated by King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

Centuries-old fables tell that story, which also was told by Broadway and Hollywood.

In a small way, Chicago was like Camelot. Long ago, the Chicago Headline Club gave Ethics in Journalism Awards to Chicago area reporters, editors or news organizations that distinguished themselves in journalism by performing in an ethical and sensitive manner. 

You could imagine them as modern knights in shining armor.

The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics defines ethical conduct, in case you were wondering.

Like Camelot, the ethics awards also faded into history. Historians quarrel over whether Camelot really existed. But the ethics award did exist.

Walking the talk

It called upon anyone to nominate journalism candidates worthy of the award which honored those who “walk the talk” by doing the right thing.

“This means acting like a professional, taking into consideration the welfare of those we encounter in covering the news and the possible harm our reports might do to an individual or a community,” said the nominating form.

“It’s a tough line to walk, and is judged by our conduct. It means always asking ourselves if we are being fair and accurate.” 

Some might say this was too idealistic, too much to expect. Even laughable.

Chief among those critics was Michael Miner, media critic for The Chicago Reader. Miner was a savvy, street-smart writer who often wrote about the ethics award and the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists in a caustic and dismissive way. He probably was typical of many hard-bitten journalists who wince and believe that journalism ethics is an oxymoron

Best solution

Miner wrote that the best solution to journalism’s intractable contradictions “was to build newsrooms no more than 100 feet from a bar.”

The media critic wrote several stories about me, ethics, the Society of Professional Journalists and AdviceLine. Actually, it could be said that Miner gave us more ink than anyone.

“Ethics? For Journalists? Is Casey Bukro Serious?” was the headline on a story he wrote in 1987, telling about my failed efforts to keep a sentence in the SPJ code of ethics that said: “Journalists should actively censure and try to prevent violations of these standards.” That part was stricken from the code, which I wrote 15 years earlier. I wanted the code to be more than words on paper, to make the code enforceable. SPJ leaders said paying attention to the code is entirely voluntary.

“Active censure may comport with a journalist’s temperament, but his inclination to police his own ranks is no sharper than a lawyer’s, a doctor’s or a cop’s,” Miner wrote. Some journalists might even consider it unconstitutional, he pointed out, contrary to the First Amendment.

Telling journalists

From the start, Miner had assumed that anyone who presumes to tell journalists what to do about ethics is a bit daft, silly or pretentious.

Miner zeroed in on AdviceLine shortly after it was created in 2001, offering a few snide comments, going so far as imagining reporters picking up a phone and saying, “Hello, sweetheart, Get me ethics.”

The man has a sense of humor and a soothing baritone voice on the telephone, teasing out information in a way that non-journalists might find disarming. Think of Morgan Freeman.

The story he wrote practically unhinged the AdviceLine team, which includes ethics experts who teach at universities. In other words, most were people not accustomed to being interviewed, especially by somebody like Miner who calls himself a critic. He was usually looking for ways to be critical.

Describing cases

After interviewing me, Miner told other members of the AdviceLine team that I described some of the calls from professional journalists asking for ethics advice and so should they. And they did.

I thought I was being careful about identifying callers or details that could not be disclosed under our confidentiality policy.

Then Miner’s story was published, and an uproar erupted. An AdviceLine team member emailed:

“I hardly know what to say about the extent to which confidences and commitments have been violated” in response to Miner’s cajoling questions.

Part of AdviceLine’s mission is to show what kinds of ethics problems confront professional journalists and the best advice for dealing with them. But AdviceLine offers confidentially to journalists who request it, so they and their news organizations must not be identified.

Sensitive world

Being new to this highly sensitive world of ethics public relations, some of the AdviceLine ethicists gave Miner more details than they should have under AdviceLine’s confidentiality policy. No names were revealed, but some locations were.

And it’s often a shock when people see their words in print, even when the words are true. Some journalists believed that nothing should be revealed about ethics cases, but that would frustrate AdviceLine’s mission to educate journalists and the public about journalism ethics. 

Describing actual ethics cases and how they were handled would show the public that journalists take ethics seriously, contrary to what they might think at a time when journalists are accused of “fake news.”

A learning experience

It was a learning experience for everyone involved, resulting in AdviceLine adopting more exacting rules for confidentiality. I thanked Miner for his contribution toward improving AdviceLine, which might have pained him.

It was a tumultuous beginning for AdviceLine.

It’s good for journalists, and ethicists too, to have unsympathetic, cold-eyed lampooners. Like it or not, their taunts and derision can be instructive, showing why idealists lose or can improve. Idealists also can say to hell with these critics and keep trying. Conventional wisdom is boring and would never have produced flying machines.

Fourteen years passed. By that time, I had retired from the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Headline Club gave an award to the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for its journalism ethics blog. Miner was not impressed.

A richer life

“But as life is richer when Bukro’s around to disagree with, I’m pleased to report he hasn’t gone away,” wrote Miner at the time. That was in 2015.

By then, the Chicago Headline Club had discontinued giving ethics in journalism awards. Like Camelot, it was a distant memory, but a shining moment.

Makes me think of a line in the Lerner and Loewe musical: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.”

As all things connected with ethics, the ethics award was controversial, including why some of the winners were chosen. They had to be nominated to qualify.

Most journalists ethical

Some journalists argued that most journalists always perform ethically, and it was unfair to pick out just a few. I figured it was better than nothing. You can decide for yourself. 

In 1996, the first year ethics awards were presented, 19 journalists or media organizations in broadcast news, print news and print commentary were nominated. The winners:

Carol Marin was suspended from WMAQ-Channel 5 for objecting strongly to reading what she considered blatant plugs for sponsors while presenting the news.

Harris Meyer laid his job on the line for writing stories on Medicare and health-care reform that sometimes were contrary to American Medical Association policy. He was fired from American Medical News for insubordination.

Bill Rentschler, editor-in-chief and president of the weekly Voice Publications in Lake Forest, was cited for editorial integrity and a body of work spanning decades in columns and stories that tackled tough issues.

In 1997, Ethics in Journalism awards went to:

The Austin Voice, a Chicago weekly newspaper that became a target of threats and harassment for the first stories of police involvement with drug dealers and armed street gangs on Chicago’s West Side. The Austin Voice was nominated by two neighborhood groups.

John Lampinen, managing editor of the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, for refusing against intense pressure to print Richard Jewell’s name the day he was named but not charged as a suspect in a bombing at the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Lampinen followed with a front page story on privacy and the public’s right to know.

Bill Lazarus and The Times of Northwest Indiana for tenacious coverage in exposing political connections in waste disposal despite a $10 million libel suit filed against them by an East Chicago hazardous waste firm. The paper persisted in the exposé and a jury later found Lazarus and The Times of Northwest Indiana innocent.

Carol Marin, for courage in journalism, by resigning from WMAQ-Channel 5 in a dispute with management over news values and hiring “trash talk” host Jerry Springer as commentator. (The station’s viewership plummeted after Marin left.)

In 1998, the ethics award went to Ron Magers, of WLS-Channel 7, for consistently showing ethics leadership in the newsroom throughout his career at WMAQ-Channel 5.

In 1999, five nominees were offered, but the winner was Nigel Wade, editor-in-chief of the Chicago Sun-Times. Wade showed his abrasive side the previous year at the Chicago Headline Club’s annual awards banquet. The keynote speaker gave a speech telling what newspapers could do to be more ethical. Wade got up in the audience and said that newspapers that followed such advice would be as boring as the speaker. But that month, Wade went on to prove there’s nothing boring about being ethical.

On May 22, 1998, the Sun-Times printed a front page message to readers explaining that Wade refused to play the Springfield, Oregon, school shooting on the front page because the story might harm or frighten vulnerable children. The following day, the New York Times carried Wade’s op-ed piece explaining why he didn’t print the story on page one. Wade proved this was not a one-time gesture when he decided against playing the Littleton, Colorado, school shooting on the front page for the same reason.

The 2000 ethics award went to John Cherwa, the Chicago Tribune’s associate managing editor for sports, who turned back staff credentials to cover the Indianapolis 500 race. A Sports Illustrated staff writer had been denied such credentials because his coverage of auto racing was considered unfavorable. Cherwa said he took “a stand against a form of censorship by a sports organization.” Other newspapers followed Cherwa’s example, and the Indy Racing League reconsidered and gave credentials to the Sports Illustrated writer.

The 2001 ethics award went to Victor M. Crown, assistant editor of Illinois Politics Magazine, for his diligence in seeking guidance on fairness and balance on a story involving Illinois Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and ethics in government. Crown posted all of his evidence in the case on a website so it could be scrutinized by journalists and the public, following advice from the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists.

In 2002, Carolyn Hulse, director of news reporting and writing at Columbia College in Chicago, got the award for resigning as interim chairwoman of the college’s journalism program to protest an attempt to name as acting dean of the school of media arts a person who had been fired at a Chicago newspaper for fabricating a story. Hulse said it was unacceptable for a person like that to teach journalism and be held up as a model for students.

In 2003, Mike Waters, Daily Southtown managing editor, and columnists Phil Arvia and Phil Kadner, won the award for their roles in challenging their newspaper’s decision to promote supporting U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, which could tarnish the newspaper’s and staff’s reputation for objectivity.

Also in 2003, an ethics award went to the Chicago Tribune for taking steps to enforce its newsroom ethics code, forcing the resignation of columnist Bob Greene for inappropriate sexual conduct.

In 2004, Virginia Gerst took the award. She resigned as an arts and entertainment editor for the Glenview-based Pioneer Press newspaper, saying the integrity of the editorial process was violated when the publisher assigned an editor, who Gerst described as a marketing director, to write a restaurant review to replace one already written. Gerst quit after 27 years with Pioneer Press.

In 2005, anchor/reporter Anna Davlantes of WMAQ-Channel 5 and Chicago Sun-Times publisher John Cruickshank won ethics awards. Davlantes was cited for courage and professionalism in reporting the sale of the Village of Bridgeview golf dome despite repeated threats and intimidation from a man involved in the sale who wanted her to stop her investigation. Friends and relatives urged Davlantes to drop the story. Instead, she produced five reports on the sale, which involved a man who said he was forced to sell his property.

Cruickshank discovered in 2004 that the Sun-Times had overstated its circulation for years. He urged company officials to go public with his discovery. Some of them feared that would kill the newspaper. Cruickshank said the future of the newspaper depended on doing the right thing, and correcting an unethical practice. Under his leadership, parent company Hollinger International disclosed the overstated circulation figures and set aside $27 million to reimburse advertisers.

In 2006, no ethics award was given. Contest judges decided that year’s nominees failed to demonstrate the high standards required for the award.

Story ends

And that’s where the Ethics in Journalism Award story ends, after nine years. It became dormant, and stays that way.

Looking back on it, giving awards strictly on the basis of ethics was difficult. Often those nominating reporters for the award cited forceful reporting resulting in changes. Other awards recognize that kind of work. 

The ethics awards honored journalist who made personal sacrifices and often took an unpopular stand. That is more difficult to find. And all nominations were submitted to a panel of judges, who do not always agree on what is ethically laudable. It boils down to humans making decisions.

Zeal for ethics faded in a time of media staff cuts and disappearing newspapers, some say at the rate of two a week. Ethics takes a certain amount of boat-rocking, not something young  journalists eager to keep their jobs want to do.

Lost newspapers

The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University predicts that by the end of 2024, the U.S. will have lost a third of its newspapers and almost two-thirds of its newspaper journalists since 2005.

Into that bleak landscape came another threat: Generative artificial intelligence able to create news content with little human involvement. Medill reports that “could be the final nail in the local news coffin.”

Medill is careful to point out that this new technology also could bring benefits, creating new tools to improve storytelling and to monetize content. It also could free human journalists to devote their time to more original enterprise reporting.

But the potential downsides are worrying.

“Given how some chain owners have prioritized cost-cutting and profit-making over sustained journalistic quality, what is to stop them from replacing more reporters and editors with robots?” asked Medill. “Can news consumers be relied upon to discern between human-reported journalism and machine-generated content – and does it matter?”

Artificial intelligence makes mistakes and could be prone to spreading misinformation and disinformation, either by accident or design.

In these times of chaotic technological transition driven by artificial intelligence and robots, some might see ethics as a mere luxury. Others might see it as a way out of the chaos.

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

Board Troubles

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By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

A publisher, at the top of a media organization’s pecking order, might scold underlings for stepping out of line ethically.

But who scolds a publisher?

That is one of the underlying issues brought to AdviceLine where publishers and other high-ranking editors decide to serve on the boards of outside groups, including civic organizations.

Civic organizations typically hope this cozy relationship with media leaders will result in publicity. For media leaders, it often is seen as a way to serve and create ties with the community.

But is it a good idea? It can lead to trouble.

The publisher of a Tennessee newspaper called AdviceLine, saying: “I have a difficult confidentiality problem.”

The publisher was a member of the board of directors for an international nonprofit fundraising organization. In an emergency board meeting, the publisher learned from the organization’s new executive director that the former executive director failed to file federal tax forms by the time required.

Penalties owed

The penalty for such an oversight is $90 a day, and the organization already owes the federal government more than $20,000. Failure to file the tax forms and pay the penalty before a looming deadline could result in a bigger fine and loss of the organization’s nonprofit status.

As far as anyone could tell, no fraud was involved, just wretched administration, terrible book-keeping and poor audits. The nonprofit organization has enough cash on hand to pay the penalty in time to avoid any further losses. But that was money intended for local charities and other worthy groups in a cash-strapped rural area.

The board’s immediate actions will include paying the penalty, getting the organization’s financial records audited and deciding when and how to explain all of this to the public.

A complicating factor is that a fund raising drive is now under way. Donors might be less generous if they knew of the nonprofit organization’s tax, financial and management problems.

Publish now or later?

The publisher asked AdviceLine if he would be acting ethically if he refrains from publishing what he knows immediately? Can he wait until the problems are fixed?

“We talked at length about benefit and harm,” the AdviceLine adviser wrote in his case report. The publisher’s reasoning mirrored the adviser’s.

“Although the public will be much upset at this, and at the misapplication of their previous contributions, the cause of that has been remedied already by the arrival of the new, and competent, executive director.

“So there is no great loss to the public in not knowing this right at this time, whereas there is good reason to believe that, even with the corrective action already taken…many people might reduce their contributions and many potential beneficiaries of (the organization) might suffer accordingly.

Benefit and harm

“That is, reporting this matter right now seems to produce more harm than benefit to the public.”

The adviser adds, however, that all of that depends on whether the board and the executive director took the corrective actions needed, then reported the situation to the public.

If they failed to do that, “then there would be a story that would then need to be told promptly; but that is not yet the situation.” The publisher does not expect that situation to arise because the board is determined to act properly and promptly, “including proper notification of the public when all the facts are in order and all the remediation with the feds has been attended to.”

The publisher has one additional concern: In preserving the board’s confidentiality, he might appear to the board, and later to the public, “to be involved in covering up something that, as a journalist, he should have reported.”

The reasoning

Said the AdviceLine adviser: “But I told him that the reasoning we had just gone through was the appropriate benefit-harm reasoning for the case from a professional ethics point of view, and in fact that the principles supporting this would be found (in general terms only, however) in the SPJ (Society of Professional Journalists) code” of ethics.”

The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists has a team of four ethicists, all of whom teach or taught ethics in universities. They meet periodically to review advice that was given to journalists who called or query AdviceLine for guidance.

In this case, several ethicists vehemently disagreed with the advice that was given. They pointed out that one of the main themes of the SPJ code of ethics is to seek the truth and report it.

Ethics tricky

This case helps to underscore that even professional ethicists do not always agree on what is an ethical course of action. Ethics is tricky business, especially when  applied to journalism.

The ethicist involved in the case accurately spelled out the benefit-harm reasoning often used to resolve ethics problems. But in this case, it could be argued that it led to a debatable conclusion.

The opposing ethicists pointed out that the public had a right to know immediately how money donated for charity and other worthy causes was being managed.

No doubt, the nonprofit organization with management problems would be embarrassed by such disclosures. But the publisher in this case failed to recognize where his greatest  loyalties lie: To the public. And he does risk being seen as a participant in a coverup, as he feared.

In a jam

He got himself in this jam by serving on that nonprofit organization’s board of directors. This is not a rare or isolated ethics issue.

The Washington Post recently reported that NBC News Group chairman, Cesar Conde, is a member of Walmart and PepsiCo’s corporate boards – for which he earned $595,018 in 2022 in cash and stock.

There’s no evidence that Conde has been involved with any NBC stories about the two outside corporations, but the Post said “the arrangement has raised some ethical concerns, and reveals a potential blind spot for a news business usually very serious about conflicts — real or perceived.”

The headline on the Post story read: “Outside roles by NBC’s Conde, others reveal a journalism ethics issue: being paid to sit on boards.” Others include CNN’s chief executive and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post.

Paid positions

Paying news executives to sit on corporate boards brings the issue to a new level of concern. They amount to paid jobs.

Typically, editors and publishers serve as volunteers on the boards of local school or civic organizations. A similar case in which an editor asked AdviceLine for help led to some guidelines that could be useful.

An editor for the Mankato Free Press in Minnesota asked about the wisdom of editors joining civic groups.

In that case, the AdviceLine adviser said the first rule should be to avoid influencing, or interfering with, reporting on civic organizations – as was done in the Tennessee nonprofit organization case.

The Free Press editor was concerned that editors and publishers schmoozing with community power brokers sends a mixed message to reporters – that it looks like editors are breaking the traditional barriers between the editorial and business departments.

Staff feedback

In the Mankato case, AdviceLine urged the editor to discuss the situation with her staff to get feedback on how best to avoid compromising the paper’s standards.

This is a good ethics strategy: Get everyone involved in thinking about what is good for the organization. They become part of reaching solutions.

Later, AdviceLine called the Free Press editor to ask what happened in this case.

The newspaper was bought by another media company, which had a corporate handbook. It encouraged journalists to “participate in worthwhile community activities, so long as they do not compromise the credibility of news coverage or the independence of the newspaper.

“Avoid involvement in organizations or activities that could create a conflict of interest or an appearance of conflict.”

It helps to have written corporate policies that are known and understood by the staff, and by management, who sometimes think ethics rules don’t apply to them.

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

April Fooling

Case Study, , , ,

techuloid.com image

By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

Days are officially recognized for every occasion, so why not for fools or foolishness?

That seems reason enough for April Fools’ Day, usually April 1 each year.

Historians say it’s been celebrated for several centuries by different cultures, though its exact origins are a mystery. One theory is that it dates to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. People who were slow to recognize the calendar changes by the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called “April Fools.”

A tradition lingers

That tradition continued into modern times, sometimes with yelling “April Fool” at the victim of the jokes and hoaxes. People seem to enjoy making others look foolish.

Media have done their share of keeping April Fool traditions alive by playing pranks on readers and viewers.

In 1957, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported that Swiss farmers were having a record spaghetti crop and showed footage of people harvesting noodles from trees. That was clearly a joke.

But some hoaxes were frightening.

A Halloween episode

“The War of the Worlds” was a 1938 Halloween radio episode by The Mercury Theater on the Air directed and narrated by Orson Welles as an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel of the same name. The episode is famous for inciting panic among listeners by reporting in breaking news style that Martians were invading New Jersey with towering “war machines.”

Welles, 23-years-old at the time, ended the 30-minute broadcast by saying it was a spoof, comparing the show to “dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying ‘boo!'” The show caused widespread outrage. Welles said he got the idea for the program from the BBC, which broadcast a fictitious story about Communists seizing London. A bigger story, Welles thought, would be aliens from outer space.

It was inevitable that the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists would be called and asked if this kind of prank journalism is ethical.

168-mile fast ball

The April 1, 1985 edition of Sports Illustrated magazine carried a story by the late George Plimpton saying that a New York Mets rookie pitcher named Siddhartha (Sidd) Finch could throw a baseball 168 miles an hour.

It was a hoax, and Sports Illustrated later admitted that the story was an April Fools’ joke. Some called it the greatest April Fools’ joke in sports.

Plimpton was famous for taking turns as a Yankee baseball pitcher, a Baltimore Colts football player and boxing Archie Moore — then writing about the experience from an amateur’s viewpoint. It was an example of what today might be described as participatory journalism. Plimpton did a lot of that.

A sports publication journalist called the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists, saying he had an idea for an April Fools’ Day story in the Plimpton tradition, but wanted to know if that would be ethical.

The AdviceLine adviser remembered the story about fireball pitcher Sidd Finch, and was skeptical at the time he saw it in 1985.

Plimpton’s reputation

“This was due to the very well-known reputation of Plimpton as a writer who went in for bizarre experiences and writing having to do with sports,” said the adviser, who also recalled that Plimpton and Sports Illustrated at the time “came in for little serious criticism once the hoax was divulged.”

Most readers thought it was “fun” in keeping with the kind of work Plimpton did during his career. But the adviser suggested that, just like fastball pitchers, not all writers can deliver a change-up:

“Without this background and past reputation, a true journalist risks his/her reputation and the reputation of his/her news media using this device. A direct answer is, the creation or promulgation of a known false story is unethical, Plimpton notwithstanding.”

And, the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics urges journalists to “seek truth and report it.” The public expects media to present facts, not hoaxes, unless they appear in the entertainment or comics sections. That would give fair warning of foolishness.

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional Journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

Bully Advertiser

Case Study,

digichoice.in image

By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

Advertisers sometimes make demands and threats.

It’s common for advertisers to push ideas for stories about their products on the editorial staff, said the editor of an interior design magazine. 

But one advertiser was so extreme, she called AdviceLine for advice.

“They have an advertiser bully who is demanding that they write stories promoting the bully’s products,” the AdviceLine adviser wrote in the case report. If the magazine refused, the advertiser threatened to cancel his ad account, worth $30,000, one of the magazine’s largest accounts.

A long-time client

The advertiser told the ad sales team that he has been a long-time client and “deserves something in return,” suggesting that competing publications offer such incentives.

The magazine’s ad team agrees that the advertiser’s requests are wrong, but they are desperate to keep his account. Meanwhile, the magazine’s publisher suggests publishing a story that looks like “sponsored content,” but the demanding advertiser will not be asked to pay for it.

Typically, the magazine writes sponsored content, then asks advertisers to sponsor the story and identifies the sponsor. But that would not happen with the demanding advertiser, “since the publisher’s idea is to placate the client/bully.”

Quickly agree

In her report on this case, the AdviceLine adviser said: “We quickly agreed that both the bully’s request and the publishers resolution were unethical.”

The editor was not in doubt about that, but wondered if AdviceLine could suggest practical advice about how to navigate the situation. The adviser said:

“I suggested reminding the publisher and the client/bully about the sensible reasons behind their editorial policy and the dangers to everyone if they violate them (readers lose faith, other advertisers demand similar payback deals, etc.)

Good reasons

“A conversation about the good reasons behind the policy enables her to stand her ground without directly accusing the publisher or the advertising client of wrongdoing, which can sometimes reduce tensions and promote clearer thinking. She thought she would try that.”

The editor’s in-house conversations so far had mostly focused on her reasons for not wanting to do what the client was asking, so it felt like a “me against them” conversation instead of a “what’s the right thing to do” conversation. The adviser added:

“I also raised the possibility that the client/bully could be bluffing, so standing their ground might not result in a lost account. When she asked, I also told her she could mention the fact that she spoke with me and I shared her concerns.”

Publisher’s response

The adviser and the editor also talked about the possibility that her publisher would not take no for an answer. The adviser said:

“It sounds like she would resign if she had to, so then we talked about the ethics surrounding that. I acknowledged the temptation to broadcast her reasons if she resigned, but recommended that she just cite a difference of editorial policy and focus on what her own policies are regarding journalistic integrity, rather than sharing the details of the case. She agreed that there isn’t a compelling need for whistle blowing here.

“I don’t think I really helped her see anything she didn’t know already, but she said it helped her to talk through it since, while it’s a relatively ‘easy’ issue ethically, it’s potentially a tough one for her magazine financially.”

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

Privacy in a Pandemic

Case Study, , , , ,

http://www.unothegateway.com image

By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

The Covid-19 pandemic commanded the world’s attention, straining medical resources and testing the media’s competence to understand and accurately report such an unprecedented event. 

As often happens in major events, journalists try to tell the story by describing what is happening to individuals. They try to “humanize” the story to describe the suffering of patients and brave attempts by doctors and nurses to treat the highly communicable disease, which struck down caregivers.

The death toll was one of the highest in pandemic history. The World Health Organization reports 7 million coronavirus deaths worldwide, from Dec. 31, 2019 to Feb. 4, 2024. With 1.2 million deaths, the United States had more covid casualties than any nation, despite having one of the most advanced health care systems in the world. Brazil was next with 702,000 deaths, followed by India with 533,500.

A horrifying story

It was a dramatic and horrifying story. And one that tested the ethical conduct of journalists. Although their intentions were good, did some of them go too far?

A British Broadcasting Corporation reporter based in Ho Chi Minh City contacted AdviceLine asking: “Should journalists enter an operating room where doctors are rescuing a critical patient just to have a good story?” Doctors consented to a story, with photos, in a hospital in Vietnam. But did their actions “undermine the patient’s privacy?”

The BBC reporter said the patient, an airline pilot, gained notoriety because his case was considered so rare in severity, “every minute detail of his recovery was reported in national newspapers and on TV news bulletins.”

Patient privacy

The case raises questions dealing with a patient’s privacy rights, and how much the public needs to know in a global public health crisis.

The AdviceLine adviser in this case was Joseph Mathewson, who teaches journalism law and ethics at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media & Integrated Marketing Communications.

Mathewson first turned to BBC editorial guidelines on privacy, which state: “We must be able to demonstrate why an infringement of privacy is justified, and, when using the public interest to justify an infringement, consideration should be given to proportionality; the greater the intrusion, the greater the public interest required to justify it.”

Guidelines

The guidelines went on to say: “We must be able to justify an infringement of an individual’s privacy without their consent by demonstrating that the intrusion is outweighed by the public interest…. We must balance the public interest in the full and accurate reporting of stories involving human suffering and distress with an individual’s privacy and respect for their human dignity.”

In this case, it was not known if the patient consented to be interviewed and photographed. Without consent, said Mathewson, “the journalist then needs to weigh the public interest in that infringement to determine whether it was warranted.”

Broadcasting code

The United Kingdom also has a broadcasting code with similar restrictions that take public interest into account, adding: “Examples of public interest would include revealing or detecting crime, protecting public health or safety, exposing misleading claims made by individuals or organizations or disclosing incompetence that affects the public.”

Mathewson observed that the many stories written about the patient probably identified him to some degree. “I can’t help wondering what was in the many previous stories about him,” he told the BBC reporter.

If previous stories, done without his consent, had identified the patient and his employer, “the ethics analysis might be different,” said Mathewson.

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The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.