Offensive Halloween photo: Recalling a controversial 2014 photo of an effigy scene in a homeowner’s yard near Clarksville, Tenn.
A website news director uses the photo, then calls the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists when the homeowner objects to the photo. Keep the photo up or take it down? From the archives.
Reporting data with integrity: Journalists trust data to support conclusions, but they can make wrong guesses about what the data meant, writes Stephen Rynkiewicz.
Ask if data are accurate, timely and relevant, he writes.
From the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists archives.
Women in journalism: Women journalists in particular contend with unwanted presumptions, sexual harassment and the threat of gender-based violence, reports the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.
“Listen to your internal radar.”
From the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists archives.
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.
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: 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: 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: “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: “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: 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.”
