Journalists in love: A California newspaper editor says one of his reporters is having an affair with the mayor of a town the paper covers. What to do? From the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists archives.
Category Archives: Minimizing Harm
Public Trust In Leaders
Public trust in leaders: Pew Research Center finds Americans have varying degrees of confidence in those who hold important positions of power and responsibility.
Public school principals, military leaders and police officers rank high in confidence. Religious leaders, journalists and local elected officials rank low.
Google Wins Global Privacy Case
Google wins global privacy case: In a French court, Google agreed to delete search results for a person in Europe only, but not in the rest of the world.
A European court agrees, setting a standard that one country’s internet rules cannot be imposed on other countries.
Ethics of Purging From News Archives
Ethics of purging from news archives: A California editor says people want old stories about them removed from web archives.
Ethicist David Ozar says the first issue is what benefit archives offer a community as an historical record. From the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists archives.
Hurricane Hoaxes
Hurricane hoaxes: “Hurricanes, just like floods or earthquakes, are commonly surrounded by hoaxes and might trigger the sharing of false information,” writes Cristina Tardaguila.
Make sure you know where to find official information.
Sharing Content Without Thinking
Sharing content without thinking: “A complex web of societal shifts is making people more susceptible to misinformation and conspiracy,” writes Claire Wardle.
“Most of this content is designed not to persuade people in any particular direction but to cause confusion, to overwhelm and to undermine trust in democratic institutions from the electoral system to journalism. Users become “unwitting agents of disinformation.”
Reporting On Special Needs People
Reporting on special needs people: A complaint about a headline referring to a “wheelchair-bound man” caused a Canadian newspaper to caution its staff when reporting on people with disabilities, reported iMediaEthics.
The term is “antiquated and ableist” ruled Canada’s National News Media Council. Say “person who uses a wheelchair.”
Detecting Deepfake Videos
Detecting deepfake videos: Fake videos pose a grave threat to the 2020 elections, writes Olivia Beavers, unless media adopt policies to tell real videos from forgeries.
“In the internet age, newsrooms have scrutinized images and videos to determine whether they are authentic or fake,” she writes. “But deepfakes will be a more difficult challenge, particularly because artificial intelligence makes the authenticity of such videos indistinguishable to the human eye and forgeries harder to detect.”
Reporting Hate Speech, Violence and Terrorism
Reporting hate speech, violence and terrorism: The Public Media Alliance of journalists in South East Asia adopts guidelines for covering hate speech, violence and terrorism.
An action plan workshop developed policies beginning with definitions leading to “how journalists and media professionals should respond to such situations.”
Mass Shootings Spawn Misinformation
Mass shootings spawn misinformation: Fact-checking the El Paso and Dayton shootings revealed three findings, write Daniel Funke, Susan Benkelman and Cristina Tardaguila.
Conspiracy mongering, rumors via messaging apps and hoaxes abound.
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 