Naming shooters: Many media minimized naming the culprit in the Santa Clarita, Ca. school shooting, writes Natalie Yahr. A shift.
“In response to research suggesting that extensive coverage of these assailants may encourage others to follow suit, many outlets have chosen to devote less coverage to perpetrators and more to victims and to the laws and policies that have not prevents these tragedies.”
Using drones in journalism: Newsrooms need policies on using drones, according to a Center for Journalism Ethics report.
“While news organizations and individual journalists are safely integrating drones into their daily operations, as well as the national airspace, it is crucial to remember that this evolving technology still faces many regulatory and legislative hurdles, not to mention privacy issues and ethical concerns,” says the report.
What #MeToo means to ethical journalism: Three “tragedies” lurk in the tech workplace, finds Claudia Meyere-Samargia while covering a University of Wisconsin ethics conference.
Quoting tech journalist Kara Swisher, they are lack of self-awareness and reflection, believing that money equates social good and having the inability to empathize with people who are not like you.
Ethical media election coverage: “The ethics question at the heart of election coverage is this: What approaches best serve the public interest?” writes Isaac Alter.
Covering it like a horse race trivializes elections, he says. Write about the candidates themselves; don’t overplay opinion polls.
High ethical standards in pursuit of news: The Center for Journalism
Ethics names ProPublica a finalist for an ethics award.
In telling the story of a high school student trying to escape gang membership, ProPublica did not publish his last name or run photos that might reveal his identity.
Revealing a religion reporter’s religion: One religion reporter had a strict policy against revealing her faith, writes Jaweed Kaleem.
“Today, as reporters become more diverse — by race, religion and more — and notions of objectivity become increasingly debated, some journalists on the religion beat are choosing to be more open about their own faiths, and lack thereof,” he writes.
Unique challenges of religion reporting: Steven Potter writes about the difficulties of the religion beat.
“As they dive into different cultures and broach highly sensitive subjects with complete strangers, they face a number of unique challenges,” he writes.
Chicago Tribune religion reporter Manya Brachear Pashman says her mission “is to teach people about religions they may not be exposed to,” and put aside personal beliefs.
Correcting Twitter mistakes with transparency: Steven Potter tells how Thomson Reuters and the Associated Press correct Twitter mistakes.
“We don’t believe that an incorrect tweet should just be deleted without any further comment,” says a Thomson Reuters source. “To us, that would be lack of accountability.”
By Casey Bukro
Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times, and every second of that fatal shooting was recorded by a police car dashboard camera in the middle of a Chicago street.
That video has been broadcast countless times, showing every twitch of the body and what appear to be puffs rising from McDonald’s body as bullets strike.
It’s gruesome, but it shows exactly what happened. The video is compelling evidence to disprove early police accounts that McDonald, who was black, was walking toward police with a knife in his hand and menacing police.
The video indicates that McDonald was walking away from police when Van Dyke, who is white, opened fire with a barrage that caused McDonald to twirl around, drop on his backside and roll to his right. Van Dyke kept shooting as McDonald lay in the street Oct. 20, 2014.
An autopsy confirmed that McDonald was shot 16 times. Van Dyke was indicted on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct.
Police misconduct in shooting deaths in the United States is a major story propelled by television, a visual medium.
The use of phone video or dashboard cameras are recent developments that make it possible to show what happened, rather than rely on police or witness accounts. Technology is playing a bigger role in proving guilt or innocence.
But how many times is it necessary to show McDonald striding toward police, then falling to the ground as Van Dyke shoots him? Sometimes the whole scene is broadcast, sometimes it is edited so that it shows McDonald walking toward police.
Continue reading Police Video: Searching for the Limit to Gruesome
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