Domestic violence coverage standards: Justin Ray examines a conflict between Vermont State Police and the Barre Times Argus over a murder-suicide.
The local newspaper “ultimately pledged to improve its standards for domestic violence coverage — though the paper’s editor raised concerns about the (police) spokesman’s voluble criticism and the potential precedent it sets for the paper’s relationship with a prominent state agency,” Ray writes.
Updating news archives: Rick Paulus writes that outdated “trapped-in-time” news segments don’t tell the whole story.
“Creating detailed stories from the splinters of larger narratives is at the core of news gathering,” he writes.
“Journalists are charged with determining the scope of stories — where they begin and end, how broad or narrow a story should be. That challenge is now complicated by digital duplication, infinite archives and instantaneous access to them.”
Rapper buys news site to avenge bad press: Regina Gurung questions Chance The Rapper’s motives for buying the dormant Chicagoist.com, a local news website.
In song, he vowed to run the Chicago Sun-Times “out of business.”
“Now that he is ‘Chance The Media Mogul,’ we can only hope he doesn’t control the basics of journalism ethics,” writes Gurung.
Local news death spiral: Kyle Pope reports that job cuts at the New York Daily News signals need to avoid self-pity in journalism.
“This can’t be about us,” he writes. “It has to be about why the country should care if local news goes away, which is the trajectory we now find ourselves on. What are the effects on a democracy if local news is no longer in the picture?”
He adds: “If you’re in journalism and you can’t muster an answer to that question, you need to move on.”
Tech journalism: James Ball calls for a universal approach.
“Maybe we should simply scrap the idea of a ‘tech desk’ altogether”, he writes.
“The sector needs scrutiny, but since technology now touches every aspect of our society, keeping it siloed from the rest of the newsroom now feels artificial. Let it be covered, extensively, across desks.”
How it’s done in Canada: The Ontario ombudsman faults government officials for seizing a reporter’s laptop.
Alanna Rizza reports that the actions, also involving a citizen blogger, were “contrary to law, unreasonable, unjust and wrong.”
Solidarity among reporters: Michael Grynbaum writes about “an unusual show of solidarity” at a White House press briefing when Jordan Fabian yields to Hallie Jackson.
It “seemed to signal a new approach by the White House press corps toward an administration that regularly uses briefings to deride, and divide, the news media.” Called a “classy move.”
Photojournalism’s sexual harassment problem: Kristen Chick writes that female photographers are calling for their own moment of reckoning.
“Many women in the industry say the behavior is so common that they have long considered it simply one of the realities of working as a woman in the profession,” she writes.
The problem is rooted, she says, in these factors: The field has historically been male-dominated with a culture that glorifies macho, hyper-masculine behavior; increasing reliance on freelancers; workshops and other events for young photographers are often exploited by older, established photojournalists.
Holding feet to the fire: Margaret Sullivan writes that the Trump-Putin post summit news conference prompts a new era in American reporting.
For the reality-based press, “the job will require clarity and moral force, in ways we’re not always all that comfortable with,” she writes. “They are not always in ample supply by a too-docile press corps.”
Death of business reporting: Steven Pearlstein writes that executive suites shun reporters.
“Indeed, what’s happened in the corporate world is not all that different from what has happened in politics and government in the era of Donald Trump, whose administration has set new highs in terms of distrust and hostility toward the press.”
To be fair, Pearlstein adds that media share blame for the sorry state of corporate press relations because of cuts in staff and attention to the business world.
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 