Tag Archives: Journalism

TV They-Speak

October 14, 2021Case StudyJournalismethicsadviceline

By Casey Bukro

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalist

ABC7 Chicago television, they are inventing a new way to speak or mangling the English language.

Listen to the announcers on WLS-TV, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company. They include the word “they” in the oddest places. A sports announcer says, “The White Sox, they have been going…….” On a coronavirus story, the reporter says, “Don’t know how many people, they have been sent home.” Even the weather man does it: “The winds, they’ll be strong.”

They. Are they trying to copy the style of foreign languages? Is this a way to turn sentences into barking headlines? Did management circulate a memo mandating they-speak? It interrupts the flow of speech. It’s discordant. And maybe that’s the idea. It grabs your attention, but in an annoying way.

In the past, broadcasters were considered paragons of speech, showing how it should be done. It was an exalted position. But they (defined as those ones or people in general, a personal pronoun) seem to be resorting to phonetic trickery.

***************************************************************************

The Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists was founded in 2001 by the Chicago Headline Club (Chicago professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists) and Loyola University Chicago Center for Ethics and Social Justice. It partnered with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2013. It is a free service.

Professional journalists are invited to contact the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists for guidance on ethics. Call 866-DILEMMA or ethicsadvicelineforjournalists.org.

Journalism of a Plague Year

April 22, 2020Accountability, Compassion, Fairness, Media, Minimizing Harm, Television newsEthics, HIV/AIDS, Journalism, Ocasio-Cortes, pandemic, philosophy, Randy Shiltscbukro

Plague in Phrygia. Art Institute

Journalism of a Plague Year

By Hugh Miller

Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists

On April 3^rd, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for the 14^thCongressional district of New York, wrote in a tweet: “COVID deaths are disproportionately spiking in Black + Brown communities. Why? Because the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions. Inequality is a comorbidity.”

The following Tuesday, April 7^th, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, stood at a podium at the White House and praised the “incredible courage and dignity and strength and activism” of the gay community’s response to the AIDS crisis. Fauci, much of whose career has been dedicated to battling HIV/AIDS, then drew a connection between the “extraordinary stigma” which then attached to the gay community, and a similar stigma and marginalization which, he argued, today was increasing the burden and death toll imposed on African-American COVID-19 sufferers, who make up a disproportionately high number of fatalities of the latter-day plague.

As a philosopher and ethicist, I’ve been reflecting on the role of my discipline in coming to grips with this new and sudden event since it first burst into the headlines in early March. As the novel virus grew from an outbreak to an epidemic and then to pandemic dimensions, and the gravity of the illness associated with it, COVID-19, became clearer, the ethical approach to it became less so, to me.

Pages: 1 2

Climate Journalism Rage

March 18, 2020Accountability, Accuracy, Broadcast news, Media, newspapers, Online News, radio, Television newsclimate change, Columbia Journalism Review, Journalismcbukro

Climate journalism rage: Emily Atkin describes how she put passion into reporting on climate change.

“In order to make an impact on climate journalism, I’ve learned, I need to turn my despair into rage,” she writes. “Only then can others feel the burning importance of the story.”

Objectivity Explored

February 6, 2020Accountability, Accuracy, MediaJournalism, neutrality, objectivity, The New Republiccbukro

Objectivity explored: “The ideal of objectivity has led to an increase in ‘both-sidesism’ — often elaborate attempts to avoid showing favor to any person in a story,” writes Will Meyer.

Saving journalism will mean saving it from a false notion of objectify, he writes.

Moving And Inspiring Journalism

December 20, 2019Compassion, Media, Minimizing HarmColumbia Journalism Review, inspiring journalism, Journalismethicsadviceline

Moving and inspiring journalism: Columbia Journalism Review offers 20 best of the decade stories that “have risen above the noise, and even suggested a path forward….”

Disinformation Is Winning

November 26, 2019Accountability, Accuracy, Media, Minimizing Harm, Social Media, Using DeceptionColumbia Journalism Review, disinformation, facts, Journalismethicsadviceline

Disinformation is winning: “We’re dangerously close to a situation in which facts no longer function as a journalistic response,” writes Kyle Pope. “Then what?”

Even Pirates Had Codes of Ethics

October 30, 2019Accountability, Accuracy, Media, Minimizing Harm, Online News, Social Media, Weighing Benefits and HarmCodes of ethics, Journalism, piratesethicsadviceline

Even pirates had codes of ethics: A look at various codes of ethics, including one adopted by pirates in 1722. Today’s media codes fail to show a love for words. From the Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists archives.

Forcing Change Through Fact-Checking

June 24, 2019Accountability, Accuracy, Media, Minimizing Harm, Online Newsfact checking, Journalism, NeimanLabethicsadviceline

Forcing change through fact-checking: Simply reporting fact-checks is not enough, writes Laura Hazard Owen.

The “second-generation” of fact-checking includes not just publishing but also pressure and working for system change.

Historian Explains Journalism

April 29, 2019Accountability, Accuracy, Media, Online Newshistorian, Journalism, Ron Chernow, White House correspondents dinnerethicsadviceline

Historian explains journalism: Ron Chernow gives White House correspondents a history lesson, writes Michael M. Grynbaum, on why journalism is important.

“Freedom of the press is always a timely subject and this seems like the perfect moment to go back to basics,” Chernow wrote in a statement.

Chernow avoided offensive comments of the sort delivered by comedians invited in the past to the correspondents’ dinner, directed at politicians invited as guests.

Defining Journalism And Activism

March 6, 2019Accountability, Accuracy, Media, Online Newsactivism, bias, Journalism, NeimanLab, political polarizationethicsadviceline

Defining journalism and activism: “Journalism has long been committed to unbiased reporting and to shining a light on injustices in society,” writes Michael Blanding.

The tension between these two mandates has become more apparent in the current polarized political moment, he says.