Psychographics and electoral corruption: Adrian Chen finds that “the model of the voter as a bundle of psychological vulnerabilities to be carefully exploited reduces people to mathematical inputs.”
Data-obsessed political marketing can undermine democracy, he writes.
Who rates an obit? The New York Times ponders why most obituaries are still of white men.
“So why not more women and people of color on the obituary pages?” asks its obituaries editor. “Why, for that matter, not more openly gay people, or transgender people?” Obits are among the most heavily read parts of media.
A Washington state law lifts prior review on student journalism by school officials, writes Rachel Sun.
In 2018-19, Washington state student journalists at public schools and colleges are free to publish what they want without interference by school officials.
Student journalists are journalists and deserve to have their rights protected, says a student. They are tomorrow’s professional journalists.
Capturing female attention: The Cut, a magazine women’s section, offers nuance, empathy and reverence for women’s inner lives, writes Amanda Palleschi, saying The Cut stands out in a crowded women’s media world in editorial gravitas and reach.
“I don’t think it’s necessary for us to specifically advance a partisan agenda as much as it is that we publish really smart, thoughtful, potentially even unpopular thoughts,” says The Cut’s editor in chief and president.
In a human-centric field like journalism, how are newsrooms putting artificial intelligence ethics into practice? asks Christine Schmidt. BBC and Al Jazeera tell how they plan to do it.
“We have to remember, as media, we are gatekeepers to people’s understanding of the modern world,” says a source.
Indira Lakshmanan calls off-the-record interviews a trap.
“We earn public trust by providing true and accurate information and being clear with our audience and our sources about the ground rules under which we gather news,” she writes. “If news is in the public interest and we can’t inform the public, we’re not doing our jobs.”
Using a 2005 photo of a young woman posing in a British strip club was not an invasion of privacy, ruled the Independent Press Standards Organization.
Sydney Smith writes that IPSO found a news outlet may consider a voluntary action in the past fair game in the future.
The newspaper volunteered to take down the photo as a goodwill gesture and said it “understood that when one is young, one can make choices which are later regretted.”
Unplugging from the internet, a questionable experiment: Dan Mitchell questions the accuracy of a New York Times columnist’s claim that he went offline, dispensing avuncular advice to his readers about the benefits of slowing down one’s news consumption.
“But he didn’t really unplug from social media at all,” writes Mitchell.
Asbury Park Press, a small newspaper known for big exposes, writes Matthew Kassel.
Its chief of news and investigations says every big project needs three components: A human element (for pathos), a new finding (preferably unearthed through public records requests) and a solution or two (for purposes of accountability).
Conflict of interest: Tony Briscoe andElvia Malagon report that the Chicago Defender fired its managing editor for taking $10,000 to perform public relations work for an Illinois political candidate.
“The Chicago Defender is a longtime voice in this (African-American) community and it is imperative that we maintain the highest level of integrity and credibility,” the newspaper said in announcing it terminated the managing editor.
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 