UNESCO offers a handbook for journalists covering terrorism: Avoid helping terrorists to turn people against each other. Includes a chapter on safety of journalists, including kidnappings and emotional and physical injuries.
Killing Net Neutrality Rules Could Hurt Students
Killing net neutrality rules could hurt students using videoconferencing and other forms of high-tech distance learning, writes Klint Finley.
The Federal Communications Commission on Dec. 14 scraped rules that ban internet providers from blocking or slowing data delivery. Rural populations could suffer most, says Finley.
Unnamed Sources Harms Public Trust
Reading a story with unnamed sources: Bethania Palma quotes experts who say that journalists risk losing audience trust by frequent or unnecessary use of unnamed sources.
“The public, like the reporters and editors putting a story together, should question whether the story is important enough to grant public-facing anonymity to the sources making the claims.”
Media Prophesy for 2018
Smart people tell Nieman Lab what the world of journalism will look like in 2018.
“If this year was about transparency of the journalistic process and how we do our job, next year it will be about transparency of values and why we do our job,” say Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg.
Poynter Points to Solutions to Public Doubts
A Poynter survey found nearly half of Americans believe the press invents negative stories about President Trump.
“Remedies to begin restoring audience trust include annotating stories and linking original documents and images to show how we know what we know…,” writes Indira Lakshmanan.
Words Pushed Their Way Into Media Lexicon in 2017
Media lexicon expands in 2017: Ken Doctor lists words that “pushed their way into our lexicon.”
Example: Useful idiots. “We weren’t so sophisticated in years past in cataloging our types of idiots.” The term unexpectedly was reborn in 2017.
Better Ads Standards
Coalition for Better Ads: Ads that disrupt the browsing experience or delay access to content can frustrate consumers. Standards adopted.
“The goal is to measure consumers’ preferences about the types of ads they least prefer in order to help the global marketplace take steps to deliver a better ad experience.”
Facial-recognition and Internet Vigilantes
Year of the Internet Vigilantes: Doris Truong writes about online identification technology to combat misinformation.
“It might lie in facial-recognition technology. You might have it in your hands already, depending on which smartphone you’re using.” Trust but verify.
Mysteries of Journalism to News Consumers
What news consumers don’t know about journalism: Margaret Sullivan asks journalists what they wish news consumers knew about their business.
“The vetting process is similar at many large news organizations — and it’s just one of the practices that journalists assume, perhaps incorrectly, that news consumers understand,” writes Sullivan. “Sourcing is one of the least understood of the mysteries.”
Deciding on Corrections or Clarifications
Correcting “significant errors:” The Guardian’s readers’ editor tells how he decides if an error needs a correction or clarification, using six criteria.
“Seriousness of any potential harm” tops the list, followed by “consequences if item misunderstood.”
“Human frailty plays its part,” writes the editor. “People can mishear, misunderstand, misread, mistype and overlook. People cut corners and sometimes crash.”
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 