Newsletter secret saucer: Melina Delkic writes that the New York Times produces 55 newsletters that cover the day’s biggest news, commentary on social issues, cooking and more.
“Newsletters can be a way to streamline news coverage and separate what’s consequential from what’s trending,” she writes.
Reporters covering the circus can’t sleep with elephants: David Von Drehle faults editors in the affair between New York Times reporter Eli Watkins and a federal security aide.
“One after another, as Watkins rocketed up the career ladder, her supervisors failed to dig deeply enough to weigh the damage that could be done to the credibility of all media should her pillow talk be made public. Now that the laundry is aired and the damage is done, some of these same editors are minimizing the impact on media credibility.”
Defining civility: The Washington Post’s editorial board sees strong political feelings spilling over into the private sphere.
“We understand the strength of feelings, but we don’t think the spilling is a healthy development,” says the board. “Those who are insisting that we are in a special moment justifying incivility should think for a moment how many Americans might find their own special moment.”
Other views on civility and media appear in Commentary, Vice, Salon, the Washington Post, the New York Times and Vox.
Cutting relations with the president: Jay Rosen writes: “Journalists charged with covering him should suspend normal relations with the presidency of Donald Trump, which is the most significant threat to an informed public in the United States today.”
Send interns to White House briefings, he writes. Trump’s political style “incorporates a hate movement against journalists.”
Affair rocks Washington media: New York Times staff writers take a close look at the three-year affair between a NYT reporter and a security aide source, now part of a federal investigation and seizure of records.
“Avoiding conflicts of interest is a basic tenet of journalism, and intimate involvement with a source is verboten,” they write. But the central point is the seizure of a reporter’s records, says a Times statement.
Romance and journalism: Indira Lakshmanan comments on a relationship between a New York Times reporter and an official of a government committee she covers, a failure of ethical journalism.
“It’s not a news flash that you can have a romantic partner and you can have a source, but they can’t be the same person,” she writes.
Enemy of the people: Ken Thomas writes about the impact of President Trump’s attack on the U.S. media as “fake news.”
Thomas quotes Prof. Jay Rosen saying, “It’s the erosion of the common world of fact. If we can’t agree on what the facts are, if there are no facts because they are in endless dispute, there is no accountability.”
Students want diversity and inclusion over free speech.
Survey of college students finds support for free expression, but a willingness to restrict it in favor of inclusion.
Students see downsides of social media free expression because people can block views of others who disagree with them.
Media told to stay out of hostage situations: Michael Williams reports on a TV station’s Facebook contacts with gunman who kills four children and himself.
“The best practice is to report the situation from a distance,” says an ethics expert.
DOJ seizes reporter’s records: Pete Vernon takes a cautious stance on the justice department’s seizure of a New York Times reporter’s records.
“The press freedom issues raised by the case aren’t new, and they aren’t limited to the current administration,” he writes.
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 