Ethics of talking machines: Drew Harwell writes that Google’s artificial intelligence assistant sounds almost exactly like a human.
It’s a convenience for phone-shy people, “but it is also raising thorny questions about the ethics of using a machine to copy a person’s voice, carry out commands — and potentially deceive the unsuspecting listener on the other side.”
Fake News vs. facts: Indira Lakshmanan says the Washington Post deserves a Pulitzer Prize for journalism ethics.
The Post’s investigative journalism “was most extraordinary for its transparency, breaking the fourth wall between the newsroom and readers by revealing those techniques to readers — showing how reporters got the story,” she writes. That reassured the public about the paper’s motives, methods and findings, and inoculated the Post against false claims, she says.
Comey hype warning: Margaret Sullivan warns against a media “swoonfest” as the fired FBI director embarks on a tour to promote his anti-Trump memoir.
“The conflict-addicted media love a high-profile fight, and Comey vs. Trump continues to be a classic steel cage match,” she writes. “That is fine, as long as some critical distance is brought to bear.”
Is buying Twitter followers unethical?
News organizations rarely confronted that question before, writes Paul Fahi. The New York Times found the practice is widespread, and the Chicago Sun-Times suspended its movie critic for padding his follower count.
A critic says a falsified follower count is like a newspaper inflating its circulation figures.
Crusading high school journalists: Students learn that a popular history teacher is fired for misconduct, writes Eli Rosenberg.
The story is deleted from the newspaper website by school leaders. The students created their own website, the Herriman Telegram, and republished the story. Their slogan: “Student run. No censorship.”
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.
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.”
Reality reporting: Margaret Sullivan writes, “As a nation tries to keep hold of what’s real…, we need more of what’s working: rigorous, careful journalism and radical transparency.”
Journalists take note, people lie: Elizabeth Toledo tells how journalists and news organizations can avoid falling victim to ambush videos intended to discredit or humiliate them.
Why believe polls? asks Margaret Sullivan, who quotes a source saying: “Pollsters and prognosticators — and I would include the media — need to do a better job presenting the uncertainty.”
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 