Category Archives: Accuracy

Ethics of Purging Negative Stories From News Archives

Accuracy, Case Study, Media, Minimizing Harm, Online News, Social Media

From the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists archives

By Casey Bukro

Back in 2005, the executive editor of a California chain of community newspapers called AdviceLine with a newly emerging problem: People wanted old stories about them removed from the web archives, or blocked from Google searches.

Would that be ethical, the news executive asked?

It was a small problem then, in its infancy. Today, it’s a hot topic. A French court order holds that search engines must consider requests to remove dated links, including news stories.

In the U.S., search engines entertain appeals to remove links for issues from piracy to “revenge porn” to copyright violations. Editors continue to field requests to “unpublish” stories. “Stay on the phone until you solve the issue,” one company advises aggrieved news subjects.

“There are a number of companies out there in the business of helping people scour themselves out of online archive data,” said the digital news editor of the California media organization from which the AdviceLine question originated 10 years ago. The executive editor who posed the question retired, and a lot more has changed in the news world.

Because the deletion issue is so controversial now, the digital news editor preferred that his identity remain confidential, along with the identity of his news organization.

“It’s been an issue for years,” said the digital news editor, “since Google started indexing news content and since people began to realize that as part of a standard for employers, many look at what you do on social media and what you do on the web.”

Here’s the organization’s policy today:  “What we’ve posted online is part of our record online for publication. Our general rule is we do not remove that. If there is an error in fact, we will correct it. Or if it needs an update, we will update.”

The editor pointed out that policies change, and that could change in the future.

For that California executive editor, here’s how it started 10 years ago. One person, now divorced, wanted mention of the marriage removed from the website. A person convicted of a felony five years ago wanted the story removed, and was threatening to sue. A beauty shop owner wanted the name of a beautician removed from a story about the beauty shop because the beautician doesn’t work there anymore.

The editor asked: Is there anything unethical in keeping electronic archives? Is there any ethical requirement to honor requests for deletion? If it’s expensive to do so, would it still be ethically required? Is there an ethical requirement that a newspaper contact Google about selective removal of items from their search engines?

The AdviceLine ethics consultant at the time, David Ozar, professor of Social and Professional Ethics at Loyola University Chicago,  said, “this is an issue of benefit/harm and the first issue is what benefit the archives offer the community. The answer is the benefit of an historical record.”

The ethicist and the editor discussed whether there is any significant ethical difference between a paper archive and an electronic archive. They decided an electronic archive is more useful to the community because it is more easily accessed and searched. Therefore, the electronic archive is of greater benefit to the community than a paper archive.

Both archives, however, might contain old information that some individuals might prefer was not easily accessible.

Ozar decided after that discussion that there was no ethical difference between written or digital archives.

The newspaper should not help people remove information from the historical record, the ethicist decided. The paper may choose to see if Google will assist those people, but the paper has no obligation to bear great expense to help these people block access to information about them.

“All of this assumes, of course, that the paper has taken the usual care in publishing only news that is supported by the evidence and has taken care also to correct any errors in its publishing,” said the AdviceLine ethicist.

Although today’s digital news editor at the California publication was not aware of that long-ago exchange, he is following that advice given by the AdviceLine ethicist.

CBC Acts Fast, NBC Acts Slow

Accountability, Accuracy, Conflict of interest, Fabrication, Independence, Media, , , , , , , , , ,

By Casey Bukro

Consider the differences in the way Canadian and United States broadcasting officials reacted when their star performers got into trouble.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation swiftly fired political anchor Evan Solomon, one of the biggest names in Canadian journalism, for moonlighting as a fine arts broker.

NBC is still trying to decide what to do about high-profile anchor Brian Williams, who was suspended for six months in February for saying he was aboard a helicopter over Iraq that was forced down by enemy fire, which proved untrue. Reports say Williams’ lawyer is making negotiations “excruciating” for NBC as it tries to decide what to do with Williams.

The comparison is interesting because both Solomon and Williams have been described as among the biggest media names in their countries.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, officially known as CBC/Radio-Canada, serves as the National Public Radio and Television broadcaster.

CBC acted swiftly after the Toronto Star reported that, for commissions of about 10 percent, Solomon had been working with a Toronto art collector and had earned at least $300,000 over two years, and believed he was entitled to another $1 million.

Solomon had disclosed to CBC in April that a production company he owned with his wife had a business partnership with an art dealer that would not conflict with his CBC News work.

After an independent investigation, CBC/Radio-Canada CEO Hubert Lacroix said Solomon was fired to protect “the integrity of the content and the journalism that we make.”

Reaction at CBC reportedly was mixed with anger and frustration, in part because of other ethics issues that had surfaced in the past. Some called it a “disproportionate response” and Solomon could appeal.

Tim Bousquet, editor and publisher of the Halifax Examiner, called what Solomon did a “crime against journalism.”

CBC’s sensitivity to ethical lapses no doubt was heightened by the earlier downfall of another CBC star, Jian Ghomeshi, who was fired for rough sex with women. He is facing trial on charges of sexual assault and choking.

The Guardian quoted critics who said the broadcaster’s decision to “groom celebrity journalists” led to a “corrosive culture” of stars with tremendous power and little self-restraint. Said one: “When you create these celebrities, you create monsters.”

Meanwhile, the Brian Williams case drags on. After suspending Williams, NBC reportedly found other instances where the anchor had exaggerated his involvement in events. Williams had apologized for the helicopter event, after military sources pointed out that Williams was not riding in a helicopter that was forced down by enemy fire.

“This was wrong and completely inappropriate for someone in Brian’s position,” Deborah Turness, president of NBC News, said in a memo.

The outcome remains to be seen. The suspension ends in August.

Nothing so far has been finalized in the Williams affair, reported columnist Lisa de Moraes, calling it a media cliffhanger.

The case drew attention from The New York Times. It said the episode “has called into question not only the credibility of Mr. Williams but also the ethics and culture of NBC News.”

Politico media writer Jack Shafer writes that Williams knows he’s dead, but is negotiating the terms of his burial.

In Vanity Fair, correspondent Bryan Burrough says the newsman is too damaged to return to the anchor’s desk. Burrough toyed with possibilities for a return.

Clearly, there are cultural and historical differences between Canada and the United States, as anyone who has traveled the two countries can attest. But maybe it’s possible to generalize and say that among the similarities between the two countries, which are fast allies, is a faith in media ethics. The details usually are messy, but ethics matters.

Ombudsmen Slice and Dice Media, Face Cuts

Accountability, Accuracy, Independence, Media, , , , , ,

By Casey Bukro

The thing I like about news ombudsmen is they do to journalists what journalists do to everyone else.

Journalists hold everyone accountable; ombudsmen hold journalists accountable. It’s not a popular job, considering that their ranks grow thinner.

A report for New York’s Capital website points out that “the trend line is pointing down” because “the position is often the first to go when news executives are trying to trim their budgets.”

Associate editor Jeremy Barr quotes Jeffrey Dvorkin, a University of Toronto journalism professor, who estimates that about 20 news ombudsman exist today in the United States. Meanwhile, the job is growing in other countries, Dvorkin contends, because they value independent journalism “in a way that I think is being lost in the U.S.”

A pity.

It’s interesting to see how a good ombudsman works, sometimes finding fault with the way a news organization works, sometimes defending it.

Toledo Blade ombudsman Jack Lessenberry is a good example. In a recent column, Lessenberry tackled questions from readers about why The Blade presents corrections without stating the original error, whether the placement of a political cartoon in the text of an opinion column gave the wrong impression and why The Blade’s ink is smudging a reader’s hands.

Lessenberry dutifully investigates each question and reports back to the reader in a mild-mannered, patient way, admitting the paper is being printed with a different ink but “it also comes off easily when you wash your hands.”

An ombudsman is a modern King Solomon, famous and feared for his divine gift of wisdom. To decide which of two women who claimed to be the mother of an infant was telling the truth, Solomon proposed cutting the infant in half, so each woman could have a share.

One woman thought that was a good idea. The other, horrified, said she wanted the infant to live, and offered to surrender the child. The king declared that the woman who wanted the infant to live was the true mother, and awarded her the baby. The story is more complicated, but that’s the gist.

No ombudsman that I know has ever been confronted with such a challenge. Instead of cutting a problem neatly in half, they are more likely to slice and dice it, as does Lessenberry.

An ombudsman must look at a problem from many angles and perspectives, then come to a decision that might criticize his own organization. By comparison, King Solomon’s job might have been less stressful.

There is an existential quality in the way the job seems to be fading.

The exit of Patrick Pexton as the Washington Post’s last ombudsman in March 2013 brought some attention to the role of ombudsman. Pexton was replaced by a reader representative, a role considered less probing and critical.

Pexton offered insight to the job as he was leaving, pointing out that the No. 1 topic of complaint to the ombudsman during his term was the Post’s online comment system.

“About 10 percent of those complaints were about its functionality, which the Post has improved,” wrote Pexton. “Another 10 percent were from people who feel they were unfairly censored. But the rest were from readers who like the idea of online comments but abhor the hatefulness, name-calling, racism and ideological warfare that are constant features of the Post’s Commenting stream.”

Veiled by anonymity, the posters were just mean and vicious in a way they would not attempt if identified.

Pexton said he originally favored the anonymous nature of those online complaints, but changed his mind. He favored moving away from anonymous responses to a system that requires commenters to use their real names and to sign in via Facebook.

“What turned me,” wrote Pexton, were remarks by a high school football coach “who criticized first lady Michelle Obama’s derriere.”

More laudable, said Pexton, was the second most common type of complaint, from readers he described as “grammar police.” These are “the line-by-line readers who see every grammatical, spelling, punctuation and factual mistake in The Post.” Such criticism can be annoying, “but the grammar police help keep standards high.”

In a sense, these volunteer editors are unofficial ombudsman. They don’t really take the place of someone officially charged with investigating missteps. Yet, that may be where publishing is headed.

A USA Today report quoted Dworkin saying that there are about half as many media ombudsmen working in the U.S. today than a decade ago.

“The public is really hungry for them,” he said. And it does seem odd that while news organizations cut ombudsmen from their staffs, they also try to engage readers and viewers via Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

It appears they think social media can take the place of ombudsmen. Wonder what wise old King Solomon would say about that?

Florida Student Blows Whistle on Boca Raton Plagiarist

Accuracy, Fabrication, Media, Online News, Plagiarism, Social Media, , , , , ,

By Casey Bukro

Journalism student Emily Bloch thought she saw something familiar while reading a story in the Boca Raton Tribune. It looked like something she had written, exactly the way she had written it.

Turned out it was a case of plagiarism, for which the Tribune writer was fired. He had copied material Bloch had written for the Florida Atlantic University student newspaper, the University Press, about an alleged campus rape.

Students sometimes are accused of copying material written by professional journalists, but in this case the professional journalist copied material written by a student. The case was reported by New Times Broward-Palm Beach.

Plagiarism often is a career-killing offense in journalism, although not always.

A Columbia Journalism Review report found that punishment for plagiarism falls in an grey area “ranging from severe to virtually nothing even for major offenses.”

It’s an editor’s decision, one that takes a writer’s talents and past performance into consideration. In other words, how badly does an editor need that writer or how easily could that writer be replaced? And, it is no secret that editors sometimes have favorites, known among staffers as “friends of the editor’s” or FOEs.

Editors might look for a pattern of plagiarism before taking disciplinary steps.

In these days of the Internet, much is made of the ease with which text can be stolen or copied and pasted. Cut-and-paste is a dangerous practice. The only good case for it is for citing a direct quote accurately. It is commonly used in the drafting stage, but a writer might forget to recast the material.

Equally easy is finding online plagiarism checkers, or reports that list the latest examples of plagiarism, or plagiarism “hit lists” of famous journalists gone wrong. Where are they now? For the most part, out of journalism.

At The New York Times a reporter, Jayson Blair, lost his job for plagiarism, and another, Maureen Dowd, didn’t.

They were named in a Plagiarism Today report by Jonathan Bailey called “5 Famous Plagiarists: Where Are They Now?”

The so-called “celebrity plagiarists,” for the most part, “seemed to land on their feet,” according to Bailey.

In its report on top 10 cases of plagiarism and attribution, Media Ethics in 2012 named Jonah Lehrer, formerly of The New Yorker, as its No. 1 plagiarist for plagiarizing himself.

“We’re putting him on our top plagiarist list since being busted for self-plagiarism led to his downfall,” said writer Sydney Smith. How do you plagiarize yourself, you might ask?

Lehrer’s blogs duplicated content he previously published for other outlets. He also made up quotes attributed to Bob Dylan.

The Poynter Institute also published a roundup of plagiarism and fabrication cases, by Mallary Jean Tenore, showing “the range of actions news organizations have taken and some of the factors they’ve considered when making these decisions.”

Plagiarism is a slippery slope. One might argue that plagiarism could be committed by accident. But the profiles of serial plagiarists show that it’s usually not a one-time mistake. It’s a choice.

In most cases, it becomes a pattern or a bad habit, perhaps because it seems so easy. And because some get away with it for some time, they might think they can get away with it indefinitely.

It’s an illusion. One of the benefits of the Internet are the millions of eyes on our words, including print editions. Many people are voracious readers of news reports, foreign and domestic. They recognize when identical paragraphs appear in two or more publications, and don’t hesitate telling editors.

A reader once notified the Chicago Tribune that one of its stories bore an uncanny resemblance to a story in the Jerusalem Post. An investigation proved that he was right. A Tribune reporter had taken text from the Post, a publication half a world away from Chicago.

Astute readers are unpaid “copy cops,” and anyone who works for a publication knows what I mean. They are really good at catching errors, among other things, and enjoy playing “gotcha.”

I think it’s fair to say the industry standard is zero tolerance for plagiarism. Penalties can be harsh even for a single infraction.

The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics flatly says: “Never plagiarize. Always attribute.”

I suppose I fall into the zero tolerance camp for plagiarism, because zero means zero. Otherwise, journalists can argue over how much is allowed and how much is not.

My intolerance dates from my earliest days of writing the 1973 version of the SPJ code of ethics. Some ethics committee members argued for a little of this, and a little of that. It was hard to define how much is a little, or too much.

So I decided that it’s best to draw a bright line. No means no, and there is no quibble room to haggle over.

Journalists are terrible hagglers and nit-pickers. The result is a long, drawn-out process that sometimes does not reach a conclusion or a consensus. Get a room full of journalists and they will argue over all the possibilities and change the punctuation. There is a point at which that is not productive. Best to draw bright lines.

Plagiarism is theft. It can’t be allowed.

 

Donations Might Help to Define a Journalist

Accountability, Accuracy, Conflict of interest, Independence, Media, Online News, , , , , , , , , , ,

By Casey Bukro

One of the questions roiling journalism’s waters these days is, what defines a journalist?

One of the answers sometimes given is that a journalist is defined by what he or she does — committing acts of journalism like writing, reporting, editing or producing something that gives people information.

Usually standards exist for doing those activities, such as the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics.

Lately, though, some broadcast journalists have shown that they might be confused about those standards, or simply ignored them. Or, are they leading the way toward a new era when broadcast opinion and partiality are overwhelmingly becoming the standards?

The most notorious case is Brian Williams, the NBC anchor who was suspended without pay for six months, for falsely reporting that he had been on a helicopter shot down in Iraq. Actually, another helicopter had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and forced down.

Williams apologized for the exaggeration, saying: “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.” The military publication Stars and Stripes had reported that Williams’ account of the incident was inaccurate.

“The episode has called into question not only the credibility of Mr. Williams but also the ethics and culture at NBC News,” The New York Times reported. NBC is investigating whether Williams exaggerated other reports, and will decide whether Williams returns to his post.

The SPJ ethics code says: Seek truth and report it.

Less prominent is the case of ABC News analyst and anchor George Stephanopoulis, who apologized for donating $75,000 to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation without disclosing his donation to the network, as required. The donations were reported in the foundation’s public disclosure.

“We accept his apology,” ABC said in a statement. “It was an honest mistake.”

Stephanopoulos called the donations an “uncharacteristic lapse.”

His actions led to demands that Stephanopoulos recuse himself from all 2016 election coverage.

Critics recall that Stephanopoulos served President Bill Clinton as a political strategist before moving into broadcasting, despite allegations that he lacked journalistic objectivity.

“But with his acknowledgment that he had given a significant sum to the Clinton Foundation, he found himself facing accusations that he was effectively trying to buy favor with his former employers as Mrs. Clinton seeks the presidency for a second time,” reported the New York Times.

The Stephanopoulos disclosures prompted Judy Woodruff, PBS News Hour co-anchor, to make an on-air disclosure of her own: She said she gave $250 to the Clinton Foundation “for charitable purposes.”

The SPJ code says: Be accountable and transparent. It also says: Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

But are traditional standards and values still important, now that opinion or advocacy journalism are so widespread online? If those traditional standards were as entrenched as they seemed during Walter Cronkite’s day, when he was considered one of the most trusted men in journalism, perhaps Williams and Stephanopoulos would not have overlooked them so easily till they were caught.

Add to their stumbles the recent case of Rolling Stone, which apologized for reporting an alleged gang rape on the campus of the University of Virginia, a story based largely on one anonymous source. The story later was discredited by police and Rolling Stone was sued.

These cases, says Stephen J.A. Ward, a University of British Columbia ethicist, point to a “striking fragmentation” in journalism ethics and how they are applied, holding some anchors and reporters to the ideal of objectivity and independence while others are not.

“This only points to the utter breakdown of any consensus on journalism ethics,” said Ward.

The SPJ ethics code says: Boldly tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience.

With changing perspectives in journalism, it’s important for news organizations to adopt written standards, so employees understand the standards that govern their organization. As journalism changes, these standards might change depending on how news organizations define themselves.

Their audiences, too, benefit from knowing what to expect.

Ethics of Promoting Advertisers

Accuracy, Case Study, Fabrication, Independence, Media, , ,

From the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists archives

By Casey Bukro

An assignment editor for a New York television station said that management is directing the news staff to give favorable “news” coverage to local advertisers.

The AdviceLine adviser said management’s mandate clearly is unethical, and the assignment editor recognizes that. But what to do about it?

The assignment editor was hoping to contact “some sort of ethics police.”

AdviceLine is not in the ethics policing business, but wanted to help the editor decide where to go next.

The assignment editor clarified his question by explaining that, while the station’s advertising sales department does not actually write “news” stories about advertisers, they pressure editorial staffers into creating stories about advertisers. The sales department has veto power over anything said on the air about an advertiser.

The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics supports the assignment editor’s concerns, the adviser observed. The code says journalists should “deny favored treatment to advertisers.”

As for his next steps, the assignment editor was encouraged to contact the SPJ professional chapter in New York, which might be willing to pressure the caller’s superiors to stop promoting advertisers, or at least raise questions about it.

The assignment editor also wondered if there was any legal recourse. The adviser gave him the contact number for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, to check if they know of any legal recourse. The adviser also suggested checking Federal Communications Commission regulations.

“After this conversation about resources, we talked a little about his just leaving the job and about the ethical and practical issues related to whistle-blowing to competing TV stations,” said the AdviseLine adviser. The assignment editor “had begun to think about both of these things, even though he was hoping we could provide him with help in finding a less drastic way to address the matter.”

April Fools’ Journalism

Accuracy, Case Study, Fabrication, Media, , ,

From the files of the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

By Casey Bukro

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 more than 160 miles an hour.

It was a hoax, and Sports Illustrated later admitted that the story was an April Fools’ joke. 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.

“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.”

Going Undercover for Drugs

Accountability, Accuracy, Case Study, Fairness, Media,

From the files of the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

By Casey Bukro

An Arizona community newspaper staff is considering sending a reporter/photographer team out with a few $20 bills to do a story on how easy it is to buy drugs, but fear they might be arrested if they do that.

What are the legal and ethical implications? A staff writer asked in an email to the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists.

AdviceLine does not answer legal questions, but from an ethical perspective, said an AdviceLine adviser, the marginal issue is that the reporter would be acting as a buyer and misrepresenting himself.

If they went ahead with the plan to buy drugs, the staff writer added, would they be compelled to report it to the police? The adviser answered that they would have been a witness to a crime, and “it seems to me they would be obligated to do so.”

The assignment sounds more like police work than journalism, said the adviser, and “while I applaud the motive and the courage of the reporter, have you looked at other ways to accomplish the same thing?”

One possibility would be to cooperate with police, instead of embarrassing them, which an article about an undercover journalist might do.

Also, the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics discourages undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information “unless traditionally open methods will not yield information vital to the public.”

The AdviceLine adviser summarized his views by saying: “First, the project is dangerous. Second, it should be left to the police. And third, as an alternative, contact the police and ask if a reporter might accompany an officer who might carry out the ‘bust’…”

The writer said he had not thought about working with police in that way.

Brian Williams, Virtue and the Culture of Network TV News

Accountability, Accuracy, Media, , ,

IMG_9935Correspondent and professor Mike Boettcher, left, with public TV anchor Dick Pryor and professor and editor Yvette Walker (photo by Collier Hammons)

By David Craig

Who’s to blame for Brian Williams’ exaggerations about covering the Iraq war? Clearly he’s to blame because they were his choices. But Mike Boettcher, a longtime foreign correspondent for CNN and NBC who now does work for ABC, had an interesting take on that question during a panel I participated in last week at a conference at the University of Oklahoma.

Boettcher, who is now my colleague on the faculty at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, said we can blame Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. “They became the biggest stars in television news” based on the history they built as war correspondents – Murrow covering the blitz in Britain during World War II and Cronkite flying combat missions in B-17s. Thanks to their work, being a war correspondent became a rite of passage in TV news, Boettcher told the audience at the midwinter conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

In our era, Boettcher said, anchors are developed “in a very accelerated way, and I think that’s partly to blame for what happened.” He said Williams was the weekend anchor at WCBS in New York and the head of talent recruitment at NBC had his eye on him. After he came to NBC, the network “began to build the narrative around him,” parachuting him into the sites of major stories so he could build his “promotional reel.” Boettcher said Williams “started believing that narrative that was built around him,” and may have felt pressure to tell stronger stories because he didn’t believe his were good enough.

The Williams situation and Boettcher’s comments make me think of what philosophers call virtue ethics, a line of thought that goes back to Aristotle. Many discussions of journalism ethics focus on ethical dilemmas – hard choices involving balancing of principles such as seeking truth and minimizing harm. But a key element of ethics is connected with character and traits such as honesty and courage that people develop as habits and reflect in their decisions.

Did Williams’ conduct reflect a character flaw? That’s hard to say without being inside his head or being around him regularly, but the evidence of a pattern of exaggeration makes me wonder. Surely a key part of NBC’s investigation will be to see whether more evidence of a pattern exists.

Alongside the idea of virtue ethics comes a concept from Notre Dame philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. He talks about a concept he calls external goods – achievements that accompany practices (including journalism and other professions) but are not part of the substance of what these practices do. External goods – such as status, power and profit – have the potential to corrupt practices. They get in the way of virtuous conduct.

Did desire for status corrupt Williams’ pursuit of honesty? As with consideration of his character itself, that is a difficult question to judge at a distance. Regardless, though, his story is a cautionary tale for journalists and journalism students. That is particularly true in the age of celebrity journalism. Building one’s brand individually, and building a corporate brand and ratings, can overshadow honest and courageous pursuit of the truth.

Dick Pryor, an anchor on public television in Oklahoma who was on the panel with Boettcher, agreed it’s easy for anchors to get “wrapped up in who they are,” to start thinking they can’t apologize and to think they are “bigger than the news.” He said it’s important to use the “truth filter” and remember what you’re there for – not to make money or create a persona but to provide news and interpretation as a public service.

The ethical bar is higher than ever today for anchors and for other journalists because, as with the soldiers who helped bring Williams down via Facebook, every member of the public can instantly question the truth of what any journalist does. As Yvette Walker, an editor for The Oklahoman who teaches journalism ethics at the University of Central Oklahoma, put it, “Someone will find you out.” And as Boettcher said, there is a “new check and balance” where a little guy can bring down an anchor.

In the end, what NBC does with Williams will probably be driven by public feedback, said Todd Spessard, news director for KWTV in Oklahoma City. The “citizen ombudsman” helped create the situation, and “for better or for worse it will probably be the viewing public that in the end decides how this plays out.”

When Media Are the News: Brian Williams’ Mistake

Accountability, Accuracy, Cartoons, Fabrication, Media, , , , , , , , ,

 

 

 

 

  • Brian Williams under fire: Cartoons of the day
            Bob Englehart, Hartford Journal

 

By Casey Bukro

The news has been the news in recent weeks, starting with Rolling Stone, then Charlie Hebdo and now NBC’s Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.

Usually, journalists try to avoid being the story, although Williams demonstrated that television celebrities might see no harm in a little self-promoting embellishment even if it’s  untrue.

After challenges from military witnesses, Williams now admits he was mistaken or had “gone crazy” when he said that he was in a helicopter that was shot down in 2003 while he was covering the Iraq war. Williams often repeated that scenario, making himself look intrepid.

Whoops. It was another helicopter that was forced down by a rocket hit, not the one Williams was riding. Williams and military witnesses give different accounts of the incident.

Williams apologized.

Caught in a fabrication that was widely mocked on the internet, Williams said he was stepping down for a few days from his post as managing editor and anchor of Nightly News, a post which ethics expert Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute described as “the primary arbiter of the facts.”

Let’s get one thing straight: Williams was in a helicopter in a war zone, which was dangerous and laudable. Witnesses vouch for that. So I give the guy credit for doing a reporter’s job.

But he went a step too far and landed in the shoals of fabrication and deceit, which ended the careers of Jayson Blair of the New York Times, Janet Cooke of the Washington Post and Stephen Glass of The New Republic. Their careers crashed and burned.

Dan Rather left CBS News after 44 years for “a mistake in judgment.”

NBC management said they were considering “the best next steps.” They should consider the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics. It says “journalists should be honest….” They also should not cast doubt on the credibility of other journalists working to gain the trust and respect of the public.

NBC suspended Williams for six months without pay.

For some people, Williams will be living proof that “reporters make it all up.”

Williams told the false story of his heroics often, and one unanswered question is whether NBC knew the story was fake and did nothing about it. Where were the editors? Or was Williams so untouchable that nothing he said could be challenged? Television crew members with Williams also witnessed the event. Did anyone bother to question them?

To complicate matters, Williams’ 2005 coverage of Hurricane Katrina also is being challenged since he reported seeing a body floating past his hotel room in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

A local newspaper reported that flood waters did surround the Ritz-Carlton where Williams was staying. And a former sheriff’s sergeant working with the anchor during the Katrina floods says he believes Williams.

Charlie Hebdo was a far more tragic story, in which two gunmen killed 12 people in or near the offices of the satirical magazine, which had published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Two philosophers who are staff members of the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists wrote blogs about the event. You can read their comments at http://www.ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

David Ozar and Hugh Miller agreed that no religion condones killing people over religious or philosophical differences.  But they saw the Charlie Hebdo massacre turning on the issue of offense, and what should be done to avoid offending the beliefs of others.

A step in that direction came when al-Jezeera English banned the use of certain words that could be offensive in other cultures, such as “terrorists,” “Islamists” or “jihad.”

Nancy Matchett, also an AdviceLine staff member, had this to say about Charlie Hebdo:

” I too think the most interesting and difficult issues raised by satire have to do with the concept of ‘offense.’  One thing I might emphasize a bit more (and here I would be paraphrasing Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous line) is that no one can offend another person without that other person’s consent.

“That does not, of course, obviate the point that a person can, through deliberate malice or carelessness or even cluelessness, say or do things that are extremely likely to be taken offensively by specific others (and here again, I agree with both Dave and Hugh that such sayings and doings constitute ethical failings).

“It is just to note that the mere fact that one person ‘took offense’ does not, by itself, show that the purportedly offensive action was the result of a clearly blameworthy motive like malice, etc. Applied very briefly to Charlie Hebdo, it’s my sense that the magazine was trying to deliberately provoke (if not outright offend) in ways that make the taking of offense by various communities justified. But of course a murderous response to even the most highly offensive speech act is inexcusable in any context.”

And I would add one more thought about Charlie Hebdo. And that is to be true to your standards about giving offense. Think hard about it, and decide on your standards. Then stick to them. Charlie Hebdo intentionally offended. It was their standard. Journalists should decide where they draw the line.

Enough time has passed to show that Rolling Stone magazine clearly shot itself in the foot by reporting a story based on a single source, with no attempt at in-depth investigation, about an unnamed woman who said she had been gang raped by seven men at a fraternity party on the University of Virginia campus in 2012.

The story began unraveling almost immediately after it was printed as times, dates, places and people mentioned in the story did not match reality.

The author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely,  said she had agreed with a request from the alleged rape victim to avoid interviewing anyone else who might have been involved, thereby violating a standard journalism practice to seek as many viewpoints as possible to check the validity of the allegations.

Erdely and Brian Williams have this in common: They should have checked their facts.

Rolling Stone editors later issued a statement saying that in light of new information, “there now appear to be discrepancies,” and the editors concluded their trust in the young woman’s story “was misplaced.”

“The truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story,” tweeted Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana.

The university and the fraternity mentioned in the story were seriously smeared by the allegations, and the legitimate cause of campus rape prevention was damaged.

Charlie Hebdo represented an assault on freedom of expression.

Brian Williams and Rolling Stone represent an assault on professional standards in journalism, and a subversion of simply telling the truth.