Disclosures

In 1978, Anthony McKinney, then 18 years old, was sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life in prison after being convicted of murdering Donald Lundahl. Thirty-one  years later, Northwestern University journalism students working with the school's Medill Innocence Project discovered enough new evidence to convince Judge Diane Cannon in Chicago that McKinney's case deserved another day in court. As Professor David Protess, director of the Medill Innocence Project,...Go to full story

In an ongoing look at CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s relationship with cyclist Lance Armstrong, StinkyJournalism opened a discussion with ethics expert Bob Steele at the Poynter Institute. Steele has written about how journalists can avoid or mitigate the competing loyalties that might turn into conflicts of interest. He has also written about Dr. Gupta in the past, exploring the question of competing loyalties in his work as a doctor and his history with...Go to full story

On October 27, a story posted at the Huffington Post announced the news “Scalia on Brown v. Board of Education: I Would Have Dissented.”

The post described how in a University of Arizona talk, Supreme Court Justice Scalia had apparently said that if he had been on the high court in 1954, he would have disagreed with the historic decision ending school segregation. It turns out, Scalia didn’t say that at all (more on this later).  Megan...Go to full story

During this summer's recession, while news outlets were struggling to make ends meet, three TV stations in Las Vegas might have actually sold out. A TV news station, KVBC-TV, NBC Channel 3 News in Las Vegas is accusing three competitors of cashing in on an unethical (and illegal) arrangement. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, KVBC-TV "filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission" against KVVU-TV, FOX 5 News Channel 5; KLAS-TV CBS Eyewitness...Go to full story

Legislators in Great Britain and France are out to protect reality -- or at least reality as portrayed in photographs.

Concerned that airbrushing alterations (often made with the software Photoshop) have gotten out of hand and that the practice is creating misleading expectations, both countries have proposals on the table that would require altered images to be labeled as such. The proposal in Great Britain, led by the Liberal Democrats, also aims to put a ban on...Go to full story

City Pages, a Twin Cites alternative weekly, recently published a blog criticism of their fellow Minnesotan paper, the Pioneer Press—exploring whether The Press shirked ethics by disclosing the HIV status of a criminal suspect along with his photo and personal information in a recent story. According to the post by Kevin Hoffman in City Pages blog The Blotter, the Press came upon a police report citing a suspect’s HIV status during a routine check of arrest...Go to full story

The Federal Trade Commission has published the final version of its guide concerning the use of testimonials and endorsements in advertising.

Last updated in 1980, the guide now includes revisions for advertisers promoting atypical consumer results. As Brian Solis writing for TechCrunch/The Washington Post explains, "advertisers were allowed to get away with promoting unusually positive or outlier experiences in a testimonial as long as they included a...Go to full story

When Washington Post op-ed columnist Anne Applebaum decided to write a defense of film director Roman Polanski, who was recently arrested in Switzerland 31 years after fleeing the U.S. where he was charged with raping then-13-year-old Samantha Geimer, Applebaum failed to disclose that she is married to the Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski. Sikorski, along with Poland's President Lech Kaczynski, is lobbying the U.S. to drop proceedings on behalf of their native son...Go to full story

Scientific polls can be valuable.  They can give a great overview, track trends, gauge opinions and reveal national tenor.  But what’s the use in an unscientific or even just a frivolous poll—not much. That’s why it’s so strange that the New York Times published this September 27th article about the new CBS 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll without mentioning that the poll was admittedly unscientific and “should not be confused with the results...Go to full story

David Pogue, who is described on the New York Times website as "the personal-technology columnist," is claiming he's not a journalist. Pogue's protestations come in the wake of recent criticisms about his interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs and concerns about the columnist's varied interests -- specifically, the conflict of interest that arises because of Pogue's personal line of software manuals, some of which provide guidance for the same software Pogue reviews for... Go to full story