Media ethics

New York Times story--“Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash” by freelance writer Lindsey Hoshaw--looks like a normal Science Times clip, but it’s not.  Publicly funded to the tune of $6,000, the article is the first collaboration between “crowdfunding” journalism site Spot.Us and the Times: “a milestone for a model of news funding that has been the subject of much optimism since Spot.us announced itself,” according to...Go to full story

If Paul Carr meant to start a debate, he succeeded. Over the weekend, Carr, who writes for Techcrunch, penned a criticism of citizen journalists at the Fort Hood shootings that picked up quite a bit of traction online.

Aside from his many Twitter mentions, other social media critics responded to his critique and while most felt his post didn't have the substance to sustain a convincing argument, Megan Garber writing at the Columbia Journalism Review was more...Go to full story

Two years after an episode of Sesame Street first aired, the dregs of controversy are being stirred. And while it would be fair to criticize politicized content in a publicly-funded children's program, some argue that the offending clip is a playful parody that has been mis-interpreted.

In a segment from a 2007 episode -- which also aired a few times in 2008 and, most recently, on October 29, 2009 -- Oscar the Grouch plays a news host on the Grouchy News Network,...Go to full story

Last week StinkyJournalism questioned the ethics of inviting Jayson Blair, a self-admitted liar and plagiarist to lecture journalism students. But it seems it’s not just professional pariahs who are in danger of teaching young journalists a bad ethical lesson; Supreme Court Justices are now suspect too, according to the New York Times. On October 28, Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy--known for his defenses of free speech, freedom of the press and the first...Go to full story

To combat economic pressures, Kimberly Abbott, writing for the Nieman Journalism Lab, explains that news organizations are increasingly turning to NGOs to provide everything from contacts and guidance for field reporters to story ideas and even funding. In addition to detailing the nature of these relationships, Abbott discusses the ethical issues raised by an NGO/journalism partnership.

Apropos the subject, Abbott is herself an NGO/journalist: she works as...Go to full story

Last week Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter now famous for dramatic acts of plagiarism and falsification, spoke at a journalism conference at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.  Numerous commentators, including StinkyJournalism, pointed out the incongruity of inviting a person with a history of lying and bad ethical behavior to speak on ethics. Now, arguing a counterpoint, Justin Pope writes in a November 6 Associated Press article that...Go to full story

In simultaneously lighthearted and deeply felt take on last week’s Washington Post fisticuffs, Gene Weingarten, an editor and humor columnist for the paper, weighed in.

Weingarten talked about the fight between a reporter and an editor, but also--more importantly--talked about the yearning for a  time of deeper, more passionate news coverage spurred by the fight. He writes in a November 3 update to his monthly chat column, “Hooray....Go to full story

We recently wrote about the ethical issues that arise when blog posts are replaced with a different version or removed from websites altogether. When the content of a post exists only online, removing or correcting without providing the original content seems, at best, misleading.

But a situation at the Guardian is now raising questions about how a print publication should handle the ethics of maintaining, in perpetuity, print content online. Last week the...Go to full story

According to the Wall Street Journal, Sunday Nov 1, the Detroit Free Press published a series of stories about the Medicare open enrollment period. The timing is right for such coverage, with health bills being debated in congress.

But it wasn’t national climate that inspired the Free Press to publish this series, the WSJ writes, it was their advertiser, health insurer Humana Inc. As circulation figures drop along with ad revenue, news media and...Go to full story

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