Maybe crime does pay if you do business with ABC News.

Shocking details from a Florida courtroom reveal that Casey Anthony, the 23-year-old mother accused of brutally murdering her two-year-old daughter Caylee in 2008, received a payment of $200,000 in a “deal” from ABC News.

According to FOXNews.com, the information surfaced in court in an effort by Anthony’s lawyer, Jose Baez, to have her declared as being indigent, which...Go to full story

As a photojournalist, London Shearer Allen’s eyes act as her primary means of catching seemingly paltry details.  However, even in the midst of chasing around three boys all under the age of five, she heard something suspicious while listening to a radio broadcast by PRI’s The World a few days ago. 

The March 15 PRI broadcast discussed the growth of support by non-Muslims for the use of Sharia law to settle legal disputes in Britain. ...Go to full story

A local reporter failed to sway the Chinese government through journalistic means and instead found himself both under fire––and fired.

Associated Press reports, Zhang Hong, 36, the former deputy editor for the Beijing-based website, The Economic Observer, was recently dismissed for his part in a controversial joint editorial published last week by 13 major Chinese newspapers that attacked the country’s government. 

The...Go to full story

Everybody knows that plagiarism can get you fired from a job or expelled from a university, but less known is that plagiarism can hit you where it hurts most––your wallet. 

On March 10, Cristina Duquette, a Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) graduate, learned this lesson the hard way when the state Appellate Court unanimously upheld a 2008 Waterbury, Connecticut, Superior Court ruling in which she was ordered to pay Matthew...Go to full story

Columbia Journalism Review's recent study of magazine's Web sites asked editors if their Internet content was copy edited and fact checked to the same degree as their print editions. StinkyJournalism reported last week that a surprising 59% of 665 responses revealed  online content was treated "less rigorously." That a magazine chooses to handle its Web content differently than print is quite a different statement than claiming that the magazine's Web site has no...Go to full story

The perennial “new media” question of who is and who isn’t a journalist also includes: Who gets a press pass?. Yes, that piece of laminate can be a badge of honor, and sometimes a necessary tool for online writers who consider themselves--and want others to consider them--journalists. Without a press pass, a blogger can be blocked from attending government press conferences in their own community. With newspapers cutting staff, new media types can pick up...Go to full story

StinkyJournalism wrote earlier this week about ABC News’ manipulated video supposedly showing a test of unplanned acceleration in a Toyota vehicle. Commenters pointed out that video from the alleged live-action "road test" included footage from a parked car test without disclosure.

Bottom line: ABC News tried to pass off as real, a video that wasn't an actual test but an unlabeled news "dramatization."  Gawker confirmed this...Go to full story

Fairness, balance, objectivity, truth, bias…  These words get used a lot in discussions of journalistic ethics. But not every journalist (or every ethicist) agrees either on their exact definitions, or on how they fit in to the greater project of journalism.  Most would agree that bias isn’t good. But David Poulson, associate director of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism argues the opposite in a March 6 post at...Go to full story

The embattled Kansas reporter Claire O’Brien--who refused to reveal a confidential source and story notes from her jailhouse interview to Ford County Attorney--now faces a new challenge. The Associated Press reported on March 9 that O’Brien has been fired from the Dodge City Daily Globe. O’Brien did not appear at the inquisition hearing at which she was ordered to testify in Feb 12. But after her source stepped forward on his own and...Go to full story

Just as in print stories, images and videos that are broadcast on television are subject to editing. And, just as manipulating a quote in a print story to make it appear more exciting can deceive readers, televised images, audio or video that are edited to stage a better story can mislead viewers. Gawker reports commenters at "YouTube and various message boards" caught ABC News fabricating a fake "real live- action demonstration" video last...Go to full story