Posted on March 8th, 2010 by Deborah Potter
Exclusive! the headline screamed: “U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts considering stepping down.” The story was posted around mid-day last Thursday on the gossip site Radar Online, owned by the National Enquirer. It said Roberts might step aside for personal reasons and could announce his decision at any time.
While other sites, including the Huffington [...]
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Posted on February 10th, 2010 by Deborah Potter
Reporting with sound isn’t just a technical challenge–it can raise ethical issues as well. How do you gather sound in the field and how do you use it? How much editing is okay?
Guidelines like the RTDNA ethics code, which warns journalists not to “manipulate sound in any way that is misleading,” are a good starting [...]
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Posted on February 5th, 2010 by Deb Wenger
In case you haven’t seen them, here’s a link to the Radio Television Digital News Association ethical guidelines for the use of social media in gathering and disseminating news. The Poynter’s Al Tompkins was one of the architects.
We wanted to speak to how speed and space limitations can compromise accuracy and fairness. We wanted to speak [...]
Filed under: 08. Producing for the Web, 11. Multimedia Ethics, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | 2 Comments »
Posted on December 21st, 2009 by Deborah Potter
Who said media law is dull and dry? Check out this video explanation of libel from Mark Harmon of the University of Tennessee. You might have to watch it twice to take it all in.
Betty Boop Explains Libel from Mark Harmon on Vimeo.
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Posted on December 7th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
The national nightly news broadcast on public television will look different tonight. For more than 30 years, Jim Lehrer has been the face of the program. Now, his role will be diminished and his name removed from the program’s title. The new PBS NewsHour will add a rotating cast of co-anchors on TV and streaming [...]
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Posted on December 1st, 2009 by Deborah Potter
Every journalist knows the importance of getting it right. As the legendary publisher Joseph Pulitzer once said, there are three rules of journalism: Accuracy, accuracy and accuracy. Mistakes damage credibility so preventing errors is paramount. But how are journalists taught to do that?
Not very well, says Craig Silverman, founder of Regret The Error.com. J-school students [...]
Filed under: 02. Reporting the Story, 11. Multimedia Ethics | 1 Comment »
Posted on November 27th, 2009 by Deb Wenger
This post is not an anti-Twitter rant, instead it’s a cautionary tale. By now, we’ve all heard stories about newsrooms sending out inaccurate tweets and then paying the price for it. Take the case of WFTV in Orlando, for example, where back in April the station tweeted about the state’s first swine flu case with [...]
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Posted on November 10th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
If a journalism school offers real world experience, should the students who participate be protected by reporters’ privilege? That’s a key question in a case involving a professor and students at Northwestern’s Medill J-school.
David Protess runs the school’s “Innocence Project” in which students investigate old crimes looking for wrongful convictions. In the past decade, the [...]
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Posted on October 19th, 2009 by Deb Wenger
Having worked for more than 20 years in TV news, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith spoke enthusiastically about his job and the future of journalism before a crowd at the University of Mississippi.
Smith says he got into the news business with one simple goal.
“I try to find out what’s up and I tell people about it,” Smith [...]
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Posted on September 21st, 2009 by Deborah Potter
Some news stories have lasting psychological effects on journalists. Just ask anyone who covered the 9/11 attacks or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But traumatic effects like stress disorders aren’t confined to major national disasters, as the staff of WGAL-TV learned in October 2006 when a gunman killed five little girls and injured five at [...]
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