Building an ethical culture at NPR: The NPR standards & practices editor tells Victoria Kwan about language usage, social media practices and urgent ethics issues.
“The bottom line is still fact-checking and verification,” says editor Mark Memmott. “Your credibility as a journalist will depend upon how well yo do those things, more than whether you’re the most clever writer or the fastest to spot a viral tweet.”
Sex crimes victims’ privacy: A Spanish woman kills herself when a sex video surfaces, causing a sensation in the Spanish press.
Meaghan Beatley reports a plea for ethics guidelines to cover gender violence. Spain’s Data Protection Agency moves to remove online revenge porn within 24 hours.
Happy newsrooms: Define your mission, then work with others with different mindsets and skills, writes Uli Koppen.
Interdisciplinary teams involve a lot of trial and error. A great experience and “a hell of a headache,” he writes.
Steps to collaborative journalism: “Collaborative projects focus on the experiences of affected people and represent exciting changes,” writes Emily Goligoski. Start with a revenue model.
Doubting the fact-checkers: Pew Research Center finds that Republicans and Democrats react differently to fact-checkers.
“Overall, Americans are split in their views of fact-checkers,” reports the center.
Bad year for journalism job cuts: The news business lost 3,000 jobs in the first five months of this year, writes Gerry Smith, worst since 2009.
“While tech giants are often blamed for the news industry’s financial troubles,” writes Smith, “they have also become a destination for journalists who want to leave the field.”
A scary state in newspaper journalism: Potential buyers pass on the fading Youngstown Vindicator, “and that’s scary as hell,” writes Joshua Benton.
The energy in the newspaper business for the past half-decade-plus has been toward consolidation, he writes. Lack of interest in the 150-year-old Vindicator might indicate consolidators decided that “financially there’s nothing of value left to consolidate.”
Use of graphic photos explained: iMediaEthics writer Sydney Smith tells why the Associated Press, The New York Times and USA Today published photos of a dead man and his daughter drowned in the Rio Grande.
Deemed a moment in time showing the danger and desperation of immigrants from Central America.
Photos of dead bodies: Images of the bodies of a man and his daughter drowned in the Rio Grande are examples of journalists showing a truth the public would prefer not to see, writes Kelly McBride.
“Don’t exploit horrific photos without a journalistic purpose,” she advises. “But don’t hide them or place too many barriers in front of them, lest you duck your most important job.”
Ethics of showing horrifying images: Photos of the bodies of a drowned man and his daughter on the bank of the Rio Grande raise questions about how far media should go in using such images.
They stir debates over news value, focusing public attention on tragedy and dilemmas and psychological impacts. The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics says show good taste and avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 