Session 1 - Brand Journalism in a Digital Age
In a digital age, corporations, sports organizations and other groups can go directly to audiences without using news media an an avenue, sometimes employing former journalists as communicators. Often called “brand journalism,” the practice raises critical questions for media ethics.
What standards apply to this kind of work? Can audiences accurately distinguish between independent reporting in the public interest and writing that promotes a particular product or service? How does brand journalism contribute to and detract from truthful information in the public sphere? And how do these workers resolve such issues as conflict of interest and controversial cases?
- Moderator: Katy Culver, Assistant Professor, UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Teresa Alpert, Director, Crimea River Ltd.
- Ira Basen, Producer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
- Greg Hughes, Senior Vice President, NBC Sports Group
Session 2 - Journalism Inside Academia
This session will examine the issues that surround nonprofit investigative centers in academia, and schools of journalism more specifically. Both the heads of nonprofit centers and academics who play host to their newsrooms will discuss the issues when such centers employ students, become part of school programs, and begin to cover the university in a critical manner.
What is the extent of the freedom of the press within the boundaries of academia? What is the potential for influence by academic officials, university funding sources and powerful alumni? What guidelines are needed to prevent misunderstanding or undue influence?
- Moderator: Robert Drechsel, Professor, UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Lorie Hearn, Executive director & editor, inewsource
- Brant Houston, Knight Chair in Investigative & Enterprise Reporting, University of Illinois
- Karl Idsvoog, Media consultant & professor, Kent State University
- Jan Schaffer, Executive Director, J-Lab American University
The William T. Evjue Keynote Speech
Lowell Bergman
Reflections on 48 Years of Troublemaking
Lowell Bergman is the Reva and David Logan Distinguished Professor of Investigative Reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism at University of California, Berkeley and director of the Investigative Reporting Program. He is also a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline.
Bergman’s career spans nearly five decades, most notably as a producer, a reporter and then the director of investigative reporting at ABC News and as CBS News producer for 60 Minutes.
- Host: Owen Ullmann, Managing editor/print news, USA Today
Breakout Workshops
Workshop #1: Building a Nonprofit – The basics
- Lorie Hearn, executive director & editor, inewsource
- Andy Hall, executive direction, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
If you’re thinking about – or in the midst of – building your own journalism nonprofit, this workshop will walk you through the essentials as you navigate the road to sustainability.
Workshop #2: The Next Journalism – The media landscape evolving quickly
- Jan Schaffer, executive director, J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism
The journalism of the future is going to come from smaller and smaller players reporting pieces of a bigger picture. They will range from tech-company news operations to statewide watchdog news outlets, to hyperlocal news sites, to soft advocacy news, to robotic aggregations.
Workshop #3: The Wild West – Maintaining ethical standards amid the bloggers, partisans and haters
- Joe Radske, news director, WKOW-Ch. 27
- Judith Davidoff, news editor, Isthmus
- Matt Kittle, bureau chief, Wisconsin Reporter
- Mark Pitsch, assistant city editor, Wisconsin State Journal
- Christie Taylor, reporter & editorial board member, Dane 101
As newsrooms shrink, bloggers, partisans and citizen journalists have stepped into the void. Sometimes they are the only ones covering the government meetings that used to be the province of traditional journalists.
Session 3 - Attacking the News Media
The news is shaped not only by the published stories. The news is shaped by the reaction to such stories in the public sphere, or the anticipated reaction to stories. News organizations have always had to answer to people who criticize their stories.
But today, criticism has become a major ‘industry’ operating in a hyper-connected and partisan media sphere. Fact-checkers from political groups check fact-checkers for mainstream media. Political groups use every form of media to re-spin a story and cast doubt on journalists who publish unpopular facts and analysis. Large corporations will spend millions of dollars, hire journalists, and deploy a battery of lawyers to intimidate a news organization or undermine the credibility of its reporters over a particular investigation.
Has media criticism been replaced by attacks that are motivated by something other than the facts, fairness, and truth?
- Moderator: Sue Robinson, Associate Professor, UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Scott Cohn, Senior Producer, CNBC
- Lee Wilkins, Missouri School of Journalism
- Owen Ullmann, Managing Editor/print news, USA Today
- Kennan Wood, Wood Communications Group
Award Presentation
The Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics
Mark Johnson
For his series
Uniquely Human: The Science of Gender
Mark Johnson’s remarkable series on the science of gender continues the tradition of quality public journalism practiced by Anthony Shadid.
Johnson engages the reader with personal and moving stories of people who deal every day with issues of gender identity — theirs and others’. Based on extensive scientific research, probing interviews ad beautiful writing. Johnson shows both the scientific and the human face of the complex issue of gender in our changing society.