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Author: Irene Burski

BuzzFeed seeks to shape, improve ethical standards for new media

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Last week, BuzzFeed released a statement publicizing the ethical standards they expect for their reporting and storytelling as a new media outlet.

Characterizing the announcement as a “first attempt” at outlining their objectives of “merging the best of traditional media’s values with a true openness to the deep shifts in the forms of media and communication,” the BuzzFeed editorial team hopes to position themselves at the forefront for new and online media ethics.

Last summer, headlines documenting BuzzFeed’s firing of politics reporter Benny Johnson for plagiarism triggered a series of op-eds and columns arguing what constitutes as plagiarism for new media and whether or not the same standards that apply to old school print journalism were applicable.

“There’s a difference between crappy, lazy Internet writing and real plagiarism and I contend that when you start calling the first thing the second thing, you belittle the seriousness of real plagiarism,” Gene Weingarten wrote in a column for The Washington Post.

Politico’s Dylan Byers argued that the sort of plagiarism Johnson was accused of simply went with the territory of working for a website that both conglomerated and generated entertaining and shareable online content.

“Foraging the Internet for photos, videos and .gifs and turning those into entertaining lists with clever captions that will go viral is, for many BuzzFeed employees, the job description,” Byers wrote in the Politico piece.

In an apology letter written by BuzzFeed Editor in Chief Ben Smith,  Johnson’s plagiarism was characterized as a “breach of our fundamental responsibility.”

“Plagiarism, much less copying unchecked facts from Wikipedia or other sources, is an act of disrespect to the reader,” Smith wrote.

BuzzFeed’s recent statement on ethics does not define plagiarism as specific to new media or old school journalism, but is particular to computer use.

“To plagiarize is to trick the reader. Nothing may be copied, pasted, and passed off as one’s own work, including press releases,” Shani Hilton, BuzzFeed’s Executive Director, wrote in the statement.

Poynter’s Benjamin Mullin saw more traditional media ethic similarities than the creation of new media ethics in Buzzfeed’s statement.

“BuzzFeed’s ethical standards look like those upheld by many journalism organizations, with a few twists,” Mullin wrote.

 

2014: The Year of Personalized Journalism Ethics

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2014 brought us the year of My Journalism Ethics. It was the year that “personalizing” journalism ethics went mainstream. Big time.

Major journalism associations, from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) to the Online News Association (ONA) grappled with the problem of writing ethical guidelines for an increasingly personalized, opinionated, and politically biased media sphere.

Some journalists embraced personalization – the idea that it is up to each journalist or each outlet to create and “customize” their own guidelines. Others rejected it. In either case, personalized ethics – “Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Ethics” – was topical and contested.

More importantly, it has set the course for journalism ethics in 2015 and beyond.

For this review, I could have focused on other developments, from the beheadings of foreign reporters and free press struggles in China and Egypt to a proposed Bill of Rights to control news media in Britain. I could have focused on bad behavior by journalists.

Instead, I focus on the personalized ethics movement because it speaks to the very future of journalism ethics in a digital age: What, if any, journalism ethics is possible?

TOOLKIT ETHICS
What is personalized journalism ethics?

Start with a few general principles – a minimum of “content” – and then give journalists the tools (e.g., forms of reasoning) to construct rules adapted to their practice and audiences.

This is micro ethics: the ethics of specific platforms. It is not the traditional macro approach of journalism ethics which provides general norms for all journalists.

Personalization asks us not to think of a code as a content-based document with many principles. Instead, think of a code as a process for those who wish to write their own codes. The code is a tool kit. It adopts only a few common principles, such as truth-telling and accuracy. Then the code provides advice, such as questions to consider for writing guidelines.

Rather than a rich body of common principles for all journalists, there is a common process for code writing for types of journalists.

A THIRD RESPONSE

Photo by Jessica Spengler on Flickr and used here with Creative Commons license.

Photo by Jessica Spengler on Flickr and used here with Creative Commons license.

DIY ethics did not emerge fully grown in 2014. The trend is the third and latest response to the current crisis in journalism ethics: the collapse of a craft-wide consensus on its ethics – on its aims, principles, and best practices.

Everything is up for grabs.

The first response occurred roughly between the late 1900s and 2006, from the rise of online journalism and the birth of Twitter. An ethics “civil war” erupted between professional journalists and citizen journalists as to who were the real journalists and whether principles of gate-keeping journalism, e.g., objectivity and pre-publication verification – were still valid. Some new media journalists said fuddy-duddy ethics did not apply to the free online world.

The second response occurred between 2006 and 2011. The trend was mainstream accommodation. News outlets, from the BBC to the AP, wrote up guidelines on how their journalists should use social media and opine on their personal blogs. Perhaps the mainstream could civilize the online horde and re-establish order in the media universe.

The third phase, from 2011 to today, is the growing popularity of personalization as a way to re-establish journalism ethics across many forms of journalism, not just legacy media.

Personalization signaled that many journalists were skeptical of the possibility of a new consensus on ethics. In the end, journalism ethics may turn out to be a plurality of codes suited to particular practices, without overarching common principles. Pluralism, fragmentation and micro ethics was king; universal, macro ethics was not.

A PRIME EXAMPLE

Screen-Shot-2014-12-12-at-10.48.20-AM

The Online News Association is helping journalists create their own ethics codes.

The best example of personalized ethics in 2014 is the ONA’s current attempt to develop guidelines for members. The ONA site encourages its members to “build your own ethics” using the tools provided by the code. The ONA is “curating a toolkit to help news outlets, as well as individual bloggers/journalists, create guidelines that respond to their own concepts of journalism.”

The toolkit starts with a small set of common principles such as tell the truth, don’t plagiarize and correct your errors. Journalists make a choice between traditional objective journalism, where your personal opinion is kept under wraps, and transparency journalism, meaning you can write from a political or social point of view as long as you’re upfront about it.

Then, the toolkit provides guidance on constructing guidelines for about 40 areas of practice where journalists might disagree, such as removing items from online archives, use of anonymous sources and verification of social media sources.

In a previous column, I contrasted this approach with the SPJ’s revision of its famous code of ethics, approved by members earlier this year. I said the SPJ used a de-personal approach because the revisions maintained the code’s commitment to speak for all professional journalists. It did not name specific forms of journalism. Also, unlike the personalized approach, the SPJ code remained rich in content, articulating many common principles and norms.

For some, the DIY approach is a positive, inclusive and democratic approach, suited to a plural media world. The end of the dream of macro journalism ethics. For others, it is an abandonment of journalism ethics, an ill-timed concession to ethical subjectivism.

A FOURTH RESPONSE
It is customary for year-end reviews to fearlessly predict the future. I will not shrink from this tradition, even if it may be foolhardy.

I predict the continuing co-existence of, and tension between, the depersonalized and personalized approaches. Mainstream associations won’t abandon their depersonalize codes, and online associations won’t abandon their personalized guidelines. Nor should they. We need both forms of thinking. We need a healthy and experimental approach to code writing.

However, I believe this third stage should give way to a fourth response, an integration of both approaches. This journalism ethics combines macro and micro, common principles and personalized applications.

Getting the balance right will be difficult.

Nonetheless, journalism ethics will have little future, and certainly little public credibility, unless it has the following features:

New unifying principles: We construct a consensus around aims and principles for all responsible journalists. We focus on common values. The key is to develop principles that express the mission of a diverse news media serving an open democracy and a global world. The content will include new aims and principles, such as advocating for global humanity, and the re-interpretation of principles such as impartiality and independence.
Personalized value systems for new practices: We construct specific best practices for entrepreneurial journalism, non-profit journalism, social media journalism, and other new and innovative forms of journalism.
Public basis for all of journalism ethics: We place a crucial restraint on the types of personalized values and practices that can be proposed. Whatever these practices are, they must be consistent with the unifying principles of democratic journalism. We recognize that the basis of journalism ethics is public, not subjective. We should be able to justify any personalization of ethics by reference to the public good, not the personal interests of individual journalists. The ultimate moral authority of any journalism ethics is not the fact that the values are “mine,” but because they promote a flourishing society, however we define it.

Fourth-response journalism ethics will be a more complicated, sophisticated enterprise than in the past. There is no avoiding the complexities.

Suppose that journalists ignore this advice and create a simpler personalized ethics that is subjective or idiosyncratic. It announces what they, as individuals, believe, and what ethical restraints they accept. Full stop. There is no serious attempt to link these values to the practice of journalism at large, or to provide more objective reasons for affirming their values. Then they ask the public to accept their values, and to trust that they will follow their self-created, and self-announced, ethical values.

Given the level of public cynicism about journalists, they will be laughed derisively out of the court of public opinion. The public simply will not buy the idea of journalism ethics and self-regulation as anything less than a practice-wide accountability based on public principles.

The public will not buy an individualized My Journalism Ethics.

AM I DREAMING?
Is a new integrated ethics possible? It does not exist. Will it ever exist?

That is the trouble with predicting the future. One can always think of many obstacles. The world does not always satisfy our wishes, especially in ethics.

However, the rise of personalized ethics in 2014, especially in the form that it has taken in the ONA, advances our evolving response to ethical problems. Personalization forces out into the open the key questions of journalism ethics today.

Gradually, we get glimpses of how to redefine responsible journalism for a digital world.

This article was originally posted on EducationShift, part of the PBS MediaShift site, and is reposted here by permission of the author.

Stephen J. A. Ward is an internationally recognized media ethicist, author and educator. He is ethics adviser/lecturer at the University of British Columbia, Courtesy Professor at the University of Oregon, and founding director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin.

A Magical Putter and the Year in Media Ethics

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I knew 2014 would be a notable year in media ethics at about the two-week mark. I remember it vividly. In mid-January, the sports website Grantland ran a stunning piece called “Dr. V’s Magical Putter” — an intriguing narrative about a golf club inventor who was transgender. The story concluded with her suicide. I recall reading it the day it was posted and saying to my husband, “Something doesn’t feel right about this.”

Two days later, he shared back with me a social media firestorm engulfing Grantland. Something indeed was not right, and what we saw in that opening ethics salvo of the year encapsulates many issues we should learn from heading into 2015.

Despite so many examples of important stories well reported and compellingly told, this year was one of media missteps. Lists abound, including Columbia Journalism’s Review’s summary of the worst journalism of 2014, Poynter’s corrections roundup and the top 10 from iMedia Ethics. But more important to me than individual incidences of ethics concerns are the connective tissue between them. Dr. V’s story was an anatomy and physiology lesson for what was to come.

Trapped in our own perspectives

To be clear, Grantland got nothing factually wrong in its coverage of Dr. V. The story is accurate. It went wrong with context. This woman’s story was not of a putter alone or even of her interactions with reporter Caleb Hannan. It was a delicate and nuanced story of a person who — as transgender — faced enormous struggles and questions. By failing to consult with even one person with experience or expertise on trans issues, Grantland went wrong on issues as small as gendered pronouns and as large as outing Dr. V. They wouldn’t have had to look far. The site is owned by ESPN, home to baseball writer Christina Kahrl, whose depth of understanding could have averted the whole mess.

We had so many perspective problems in 2014. The New York Times stumbled in trying to turn a stereotyped phrase and referring to Shonda Rhimes as an “angry black woman.” Coverage of the Ferguson protests lagged until a pair of reporters were arrested and got their own first-person view. And a Fox News anchor reacted to groundbreaking news that a female fighter pilot led the United Arab Emirates attacks on ISIL by referring to her as “boobs on the ground.”

This lack of perspective beyond our own is but one reason it’s a good idea to diversify both the people producing journalism and the avenues for citizens to participate in it. Every ethical discussion must include consideration of all those who would be affected by a story and whenever possible, we should seek and value their input.

Chasing a big narrative

The Dr. V story also shared fraught ethical tissue with likely the most regrettable media performance of 2014: The Rolling Stone story, “A Rape on Campus.” The bone-chilling tale of a gang rape at the University of Virginia had many elements familiar to those of us who know well the problems of sexual assault on campus. But it also struck some off-key chords, leading other media outlets — most notably the Washington Post — to question the story and find holes in the details.

Despite widespread references that the story has been retracted, the victim stands by her account and an independent review is under way at the Columbia University journalism school. With significant questions still in play, the jury is out on whether UVA fell victim to a “massive failure of journalistic ethics,” as asserted by the head of the university’s board of visitors.

But what is clear to me is that the magazine stumbled badly from the very outset of reporting. The writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, has spoken of casting about extensively for the right case on the right campus. She was hunting a particularly grave and stunning narrative. But that’s not what campus rape is about. It’s not a case. It’s all the cases. In outing Dr. V as trans, Grantland missed the shared experience of trans people. In highlighting one horror in graphic detail, Rolling Stone missed the commonness of campus rape. They’ve been almost entirely overlooked in this debacle, but Atlantic’s piece on fraternity culture and the New York Times’ look at a campus sexual assault were ethical wins this year.

The Wall Street Journal discusses the Rolling Stone rape story.

Guessing at what isn’t known

Grantland raised a lot of questions with no answers in its putter piece. Other media this year erred in guessing when they didn’t know. The worst example — by far — came with the domestic abuse case involving Baltimore Ravens star running back Ray Rice. Before TMZ published video clearly showing Rice brutally punching his then-girlfriend in an elevator, all the public had to go on was video of the following scene outside the elevator. When Rice was suspended for two games as a result, it led to lots of uninformed speculation — as if to say, “We don’t know what she did in that elevator.”

ESPN suspended panelist Stephen A. Smith for implying that women ought not provoke abuse, just one of multiple examples of victim-blaming. And ESPN also suspended Bill Simmons — Grantland’s founder and editor — after he essentially dared them to when accusing NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell of knowing more than he disclosed in the Rice case.

Covering suicide

The most jarring element of “Dr. V’s Magical Putter” comes at its close, when readers learn the subject died by suicide. This passage feels tacked on and badly handled — fitting, as it kicked off what I will remember as a horrible year for one of journalism’s most difficult subjects. When Robin Williams died by suicide in August, I knew plenty of media outlets would go wrong. They would say he “committed” suicide, when experts repeatedly guide toward the phrasing, “died by suicide.” They would glamorize Williams and his death, possibly boosting the contagion effect. And they would express shock and surprise, despite Williams’ many years battling depression and substance abuse, two key predictors of suicide.

But I had no idea we would go this wrong:

  • Radar Online ran a photo of Williams at an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting, in clear violation of his privacy and contravention of the group’s parameters.
  • A CBS affiliate covered his attendance at AA meetings, courtesy of one of its own photographers who also attended.
  • Fox News’ Shepard Smith speculated about Williams being a “coward.”
  • ABC streamed live aerial shots from above Williams’ home after he was found dead.
  • And Henry Rollins betrayed his own experience with depression in a craven “F*** Suicide” post.

Thankfully, we are far ahead of where we were just a decade ago in understanding suicide and advocating for responsible coverage. Useful guidelines abound and should be routinely discussed in newsrooms. Advocates are also quick to root out problems and demand improvements. Apologies followed every one of the examples above. Let’s hope we learn from them.

Robin Williams' death dominated news cycles. (Photo courtesy of Eggwork and used here under Creative Commons.)

Robin Williams’ death dominated news cycles. (Photo courtesy of Eggwork and used here under Creative Commons.)

Getting it right when wrong

This brings me to the one place Grantland went right. When social media delivered a lashing to their door, the staff did not bolt the lock. Instead, they engaged in serious and public self-reflection. Simmons’ letter detailing how they got where they were and why the story was a problem is a masterstroke of ethical reasoning. It was late. But it was certainly not too little. The site also gave Christina Kahrl ample amplification for her searing critique.

Not everyone could claim the same corrective high ground. New York magazine was duped by a teenager into thinking he had made millions picking stocks. They’ve run a correction, but their online headline still reads as though the story is true. Conservative news site Breitbart also kept up a headline claiming Loretta Lynch, nominee for attorney general, had defended the Clintons during Whitewater. They had the wrong Loretta Lynch and appended a correction at the bottom of the page but left the original flawed headline live for weeks.

Yet the grand prize for doing worse in a correction than you did in a story has to go to Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana.

When outlets began focusing on flaws in its rape story, Rolling Stone could have done what it now has: investigate how things went astray and take responsibility. Instead, Dana took the initial errant step of blaming the victim, using her pseudonym,  “Jackie.”

“In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.”

I suspect that one sentence did more to set back reporting on sensitive issues than any other development in 2014. Remember, Jackie has not retracted her statements. And she didn’t write or edit the story. But even though the magazine has now reworked its statement, that original is the dominant impression for many.

Ethics and public communicators

One final element of Grantland’s year-opening ethics controversy sticks with me. Simmons’ letter details his discomfort with the tenor of many responses, especially those directed at the writer.

(W)as that worth tormenting him on Twitter, sending him death threats, posting his personal information online and even urging him to kill himself like Dr. V did? Unbelievably, for some people, the answer was ‘yes.’ I found that behavior to be sobering at best and unconscionable at worst. You can’t excoriate a writer for being insensitive while also being willfully insensitive to an increasingly dangerous situation.

In that, I see an inescapable link to this year’s most troubling ethics case: GamerGate. While many claimed this movement was about calling out ethical lapses in videogame journalism, I was astounded and appalled by the misogynistic and threatening nature of some posts. People — particularly women — were attacked for speaking out, often getting “doxxed” (slang for having your personal information documented or published online).

I, like many, have had and still have hope that the participatory nature of digital media will help more people engage with news coverage, counter bias and correct errors. But GamerGate is challenging those hopes of mine. Much of the conversation — if I can even call it that — has been a toxic sludge of rumor, invective and gender bias. The irony comes from people who claim to be challenging the ethics of game journalists through patently unethical behavior.

It seems that to some, journalists must have ethics but other public communicators are free from responsibility. Wrong. We’re smack in an age when access to the means to publish — whether on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere — amps up the responsibility we all have. Anyone with an Internet connection needs to consider the responsible use of our freedom to publish. Truth, bias, independence and minimizing harm are no longer questions merely for journalists. And every petulant gamer who will engage in doxxing, rape threats or other abuses needs to wake up, smell those obligations and stop polluting the public sphere.

This pollution extends beyond GamerGate, of course. Take a look at the mayhem of Charles C. Johnson if you’re interested in another case study. We began 2014 with all sorts of questions about Grantland’s responsibility. The interesting questions for the coming year will be how far such responsibilities extend beyond news organizations and how we can hold other public communicators accountable.

Kathleen Bartzen Culver (@kbculver) is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, teaching and researching at the intersection of ethics and digital media practices. Culver also serves as associate director of the Center for Journalism Ethics and education curator for PBS MediaShift.

Retracted Rolling Stone sexual assault story fallout is about more than just poor fact checking

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The journalistic failures of Rolling Stone, both ethically and practically, in their reporting of a horrific sexual assault on the campus of the University of Virginia offers a stark example of how wrong things can go when an artfully worded and compelling narrative appears to have bypassed the fact-checking desk entirely on its way to publication.

While there story’s intent may have been to call attention to the issue of sexual assaults on college campuses, the retraction of “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA” also inadvertently served to lessen the overall credibility of all rape victims.

One thing the editors of Rolling Stone and reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely found out was that other reporters, bloggers and students were wiling to do some fact-checking of their own, but not before the story brought an uproar on the U-Va campus and around the country.  Within a matter of days, U-Va opened an investigation and suspended the entire Greek system.  At the same time, the story began to unravel.  (The Washington Post offers a timeline of events here.)

Writing for the Voices section of USA Today, copy desk chief and U-Va graduate Susan Miller explains that she found the story disturbing for reasons beyond the account of the alleged crime.

When I could finally swallow my anger and angst, I re-read the Rolling Stone piece a few days later. This time, however, I was able to detach from the scintillating prose — and I found the story unsettling for other reasons:

• Embedded throughout the narrative were verses from a 70-year-old school song the reporter deemed “naughty,” implying a culture of abusing women for decades. How could one make that leap?

• The word “alleged” never appeared in the 9,000-word article.

• There were changed names and quotes from unidentified people. On a guided tour of fraternity row, the reporter quotes a nameless student: “I know a girl who got assaulted there.” Chimes in a second nameless student: “I do, too! That makes two! Yay!”

• There was missing or unclear attribution. The story says “studies have shown that fraternity men are three times as likely to commit rape.” Which studies?

• And the most gaping hole of all: There was no mention of any attempt to contact the alleged perpetrators or to verify the events.

Miller concludes her piece by pointing out the larger problem with the Rolling Stone story, noting, “The resulting firestorm is drowning out the voices that still deserve to be heard: the Jackies who may have suffered sexual assaults at Virginia and college campuses across the land.”

This unfortunate aspect of the fallout as well as the ethical failings of Rolling Stone’s reporter and editors was also noted by Katy Culver, associate director for the University of Wisconsin Center for Journalism Ethics, when she spoke with Tanya Rivero of the Wall Street Journal’s video program, Lunch Box.

[Image by Ryan M. Kelly, via USA Today]

More reporting needed on subject of local journalists dying in Iraq and Syria

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The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has been a major focus of US news outlets’ foreign correspondence over the past several months. Starting with the involvement of ISIL’s forays into Syria, and reaching a fever pitch after western journalists like James Foley and Stephen Sotloff were beheaded on video, the militant organization has driven much of the media’s discussion about geopolitical conflict at the present moment. ISIL’s antics have certainly inspired news organizations’ renewed interest in the Syrian civil war. They have also illuminated the unfortunate fact that after a brief reprieve from fighting in Iraq, US forces are once again embroiled in the region. ONE_2014_military_intervention_against_ISIS_collageAnd though war correspondents have never been entirely absent from Iraq or from Syria over the past few years, they’re back at work in much greater numbers, reporting from some of the world’s most perilous locations.

War correspondence is a profession that deserves further attention from journalism ethicists, especially since digital media technologies and practices have lent more transnational visibility to war coverage than ever before. Communications scholar Stephen J. A. Ward has argued that the news media are now global in reach, because they have the capability of gathering and distributing information with unprecedented speed. According to Ward, this global reach “entails global responsibilities,” necessitating that foreign correspondents think outside the confines of their own nation-states. Rather than gearing their reports toward a national audience, Ward encourages journalists to think about the increasingly vast and diverse nature of the readers and viewers connected through digital technologies.

Communications scholar Herman Wasserman has also shown an interest in the growing interconnections—and yet, the continued disconnections—that define social and political life in the 21st century. He says: “Journalism in this era should constantly confront us with other views, other perspectives, other ways of making sense of the complex and changing world we live in.” Wasserman suggests that journalists should infuse “the recognition of difference” into their professional practice. Rather than attempting to dilute or ignore the cultural disparities that continue to exist in our tightly interconnected world, journalists should try to understand these differences. They should also help their audiences to understand.

This is especially the case with war journalism. Since war is essentially the ground zero of socio-political disconnection—the worst possible outcome of cultural disagreement, competition, or misrecognition—it is vital that conflict reporters treat social and cultural difference with the utmost care. Despite the difficulties in maintaining objectivity in the conflict zone, war journalists should still strive to put nationalism aside, instead seeking to understand all of the diverse elements that have engendered the conflict they are covering. The failure to do so could perpetuate the conflict itself, as well as laying the groundwork for future conflicts born of radical misunderstandings and misrepresentations of different cultures. This danger becomes all the more potent in the context of digitization, where such misrepresentations gain traction far more quickly than they once did.

TWO_War_reporterUS news outlets’ coverage of the rise of ISIL points to a number of relevant examples of the dangers involved in eschewing the ethical “recognition of difference” in war correspondence. One such example can be found in the news organizations’ tendency to focus on the plight of war journalists themselves. The strategy of turning the war journalist into the story is one that has been the subject of much debate in news industry circles. When Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in 2002, for example, US news organizations flooded the mediascape with images of him in captivity, perpetually defending this choice by claiming that news audiences deserved to know what journalists and troops were up against in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. Yet, this focus on Pearl’s situation did not ultimately save him, leading the New York Times to instate a media blackout when its correspondent David Rohde was kidnapped in 2008. Rohde later escaped.

In August and September of 2014, war journalists again became the story after news organizations reported that ISIL had beheaded US freelance reporters James Foley and Stephen Sotloff. The announcement of this tragic news resulted in an explosion of discourse about the safety of American journalists in Syria and the cruelty of militant groups in Syria and Iraq. This intense discussion was not entirely surprising; Foley and Sotloff had both ventured into one of the most dangerous warzones in the world, risking their lives in order to better inform news audiences about what was happening in Syria. They deserved better treatment than what they received, and they certainly deserved to be eulogized.

The problem arises, not in the discourse on Sotloff and Foley, but in the lack of similarly detailed attention to the plight of other journalists in Iraq and Syria, most especially those working for news organizations in the Middle East. This is a problem that has particularity plagued US television coverage since 9/11. TV news networks have often fixated upon the suffering of American correspondents while only very rarely mentioning the fact that local journalists suffer the most in war zones. The website for the Committee to Protect Journalists shows that of the 10 journalists killed in Syria so far this year alone, 7 were from the Arab world, working for news organizations based in the Middle East. The CPJ website on journalist deaths in Iraq shows that five journalists have been killed there in 2014—one from Turkey and the rest working for Iraqi news outlets. In past years, the list is even longer.

640px-Bombed_out_vehicles_AleppoSome might argue that it’s only natural for US organizations to focus on US journalists in the warzone, since American news audiences are bound to be more interested in the challenges faced by their own reporters. But that attitude situates journalism firmly within the purview of the nation-state, while also raising questions about objectivity and balance in war coverage. We live at a time when the beleaguered body of the war correspondent is routinely offered up as evidence of the world’s various war crimes. At times, news organizations will even go so far as to present their correspondents’ harrowing incidents as events that should inspire certain political stances. This especially occurs when organizations give most or all of their attention to the experiences of their own journalists, without further investigating the experiences that others face.

Yes, American journalists are being targeted in the field. Yes, the US has lost a number of amazing reporters since 9/11. And yes, it does make sense that those journalists’ experiences should be shared with news audiences, with the viewers and readers who need to know how difficult it is to give them the information they require. But so many other journalists have died since 9/11. If US news organizations are indeed dedicated to giving their increasingly transnational news audiences the entire story, then don’t these other deaths matter just as much?

In an era where journalists inevitably become a part of the story—targeted, kidnapped and killed by the groups on whom they are reporting—it is essential that news organizations strive to tell that story in its entirety. This involves a conscious engagement in the ethical “recognition of difference” and a dedication to providing audiences with “other views, other perspectives, other ways of making sense of the complex and changing world we live in,” to use Wasserman’s words. Yes, tell the story of Stephen Sotloff’s murder in Syria; but also tell the story of Mohammed al-Qasim, a correspondent for Syria’s Rozana Radio. He was killed only days after Sotloff, and his death raises a unique set of questions about Syria’s ongoing conflict. What stake do Syrian journalists have in covering the war, for example, and why are they being targeted? What stories can they tell about this struggle, and what perspectives can they add to those with which US readers and viewers are already familiar?

These are important questions, and not just for the people living in Iraq or Syria. US news audiences are now linked to other readers and viewers around the world, and the conflicts in distant places are not so very distant anymore. Because of this, it is crucial that journalists strive to achieve the “ethical recognition of difference”—even in the stories they tell about themselves.

Lindsay Palmer is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is a faculty associate of the Center for Journalism Ethics.

[photos used via Wikimedia Creative Commons license]

Comedian Daniel Tosh calls out ESPN for plagiarism… with a bit of his own

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ESPN recently faced scrutiny for what appears to be a direct lift of a segment from a comedian’s show on Comedy Central.

ESPN recently began airing a new segment, titled “Awesome Video Segment,” and the very first one they produced reminded a lot of people of comedian Daniel Tosh’s segment called “Web Redemption” featured on his popular Comedy Central Show, Tosh.0. Tosh himself found the segment to be extremely similar, and decided to address the issue on his show.

While Tosh’s assessment of ESPN may be crude and immature to some people, when showing the comparisons between ESPN’s segment and his own, it becomes readily apparent that the two segments were similar well beyond coincidence.

On Tosh’s version of the feature, he finds an online video of someone doing something embarrassing or something that gets them injured or in trouble in some way, and interviews them about it and usually leads into a comedic bit where he asks them if they’re willing to, “give it another shot.”

ESPN’s first installment of their version of the feature looks nearly like an exact copy of Tosh’s. It opened with embarrassing video of someone doing something where they hurt themselves, moved next to an interview with the subject, which then led to the reporter offering up the exact question Tosh always asks: “Are you willing to give it another shot?”

The similarities between the two led Tosh to mock ESPN on his own show, parodying the popular “Sports Science” segment featured frequently on ESPNs flagship program, Sportscenter. Tosh, in his criticism of the network, isn’t shy in letting it be known what he thinks of them: “I’m fine with kids in high school or college plagiarizing, but once you work for a real network you should have some God damn self respect.”

The off-color remark resonated with some people around the Internet, with commentaries from the blogosphere claiming that Tosh has “ethered” ESPN or “goes off on ESPN for stealing his segment.”

While numerous outlets have reported the story, ESPN has since commented on the matter, telling TMZ Sports:

This was more of an instance of us using a common phrase than it was copying his wording. We know that doesn’t sound like the strongest explanation yet it’s the truth. We are looking forward to ‘giving it another shot’ in future installments of ‘The Awesome Video Segment.’

ESPN has continued the “Awesome Video Segment,” though it looks very different from the very first one cited in Tosh’s criticism. Their second segment recaps a touchdown scored by a massive lineman in a recent college football game, which as any football fan knows, rarely happens. It seems that ESPN is trying its hardest to distance itself from the first segment of the “Awesome Video Segment,” as the video of it cannot be found on ESPNs website, unlike the second segment.

There is no denying the similarities between the two segments. While Tosh has no real legitimate claim over the content and format or his segment, to mst viewers it looks like ESPN borrowed heavily from the comedian’s work. ESPN assertion that the similarities may have just happened by coincidence rings hollow.

The combination of the fact that the structure of “Awesome Video Segment” was changed heavily from the first segment to the second, as well as the fact that the video seemingly doesn’t exist on any ESPN-related platform online, seem to suggest that the first video would like to be forgotten. We’ll have to see if ESPN does seemingly ‘give it another shot,’ and borrow from Tosh in the future.

ESPNU reporter slammed over “joke” tweet about FSU shooting

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An ESPNU reporter sent out a tweet late last night that has many people around the internet shocked and upset.

According to the Washington Post, Marisa Martin, a University of Alabama student who works with ESPNU’s Campus Connection Program, sent out a tweet last night following reports of a gunman at Florida State University that stated: “Reported gunman on the FSU campus. Maybe he is heading for Jameis.” The tweet, referencing Florida State’s Heisman-winning quarterback Jameis Winston, proved upsetting to many people, especially when it became known that Martin is a reporter for an ESPN property.

After receiving heavy criticism from other Twitter users, Martin then tweeted: “Since apparently I cant make a joke in all seriousness I hope everyone at FSU is safe & that the gunman is found. But I stand by my opinions.” This further infuriated people across the web, and Martin eventually deleted her Twitter account and claimed through the University of Alabama ESPNU Campus Connection Twitter feed that she had supposedly been hacked and apologized for the tweets.

The story has been picked up across the internet , with a variety of media outlets covering the story.  The late claim that the Twitter account was hacked notwithstanding, the ESPNU student reporter’s alleged posting of a tasteless serves as yet another example in the seemingly endless stream of damning one’s credibility in 140 characters or less.

 

Redskins Wide Receiver Criticizes Sports Media’s Intentions

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A top NFL wide receiver recently criticized the national sports media, questioning what the goals of the media really are.

Pierre Garcon, a wide receiver for the Washington Redskins, appeared recently on the SirisXM NFL Radio program, “The Opening Drive on Tuesday,” and was asked about Robert Griffin III, the teams starting quarterback, and the reports that came out from ESPN last week regarding his leadership in the team locker room.

garconGarcon was very adamant in backing up his quarterback, saying: “He’s the team quarterback. Everybody loves him here. He’s definitely a great guy, he’s a fun guy…but he’s definitely our team leader, he’s definitely our quarterback, he’s definitely a great player.”

After hearing this, the host of the program asked about how rumors like this get out to the media. Garcon’s response was outlined by Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post:

“You know, there’s media people in our locker room, they want to make national headlines instead of report things that’s really going on,” Garcon said. “But I’m there every day. I see it. Guys are working hard, guys are playing towards one goal, trying to make the team win. But media are trying to make news instead of reporting [anything] that’s going on in our locker room, which is every day we just try to stay on our normal [routine], giving [the media] as less as possible. So they try to make up news to make theirselves more important than what they really are.”

Garçon’s comments are a fresh example of an ongoing issue in sports journalism, in which some players in prominent sports display disdain or distrust for the media and their claimed goals.

Pierre Garcon is not the only player who seems to have a recent problem with the media. Marshawn Lynch, running back for the Seattle Seahawks, makes no secret of his dislike of the media, and largely hates talking to them. His constant refusal has even gotten him into trouble as of late with the NFL.

The ethical issues surrounding today’s sports journalism will be the subject of the Center for Journalism Ethics’ upcoming annual conference.  More information about Fair or Foul: Ethics in Sports Journalism, to be held April 10, 2015 on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, can be found here.

[photo by Brace Hemmelgarn / USA TODAY Sports via WashingtonPost.com]

Local news stations contribute to Nevada Attorney General race; posing questions

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While allowable by Nevada state law, the $40,000 donation made by Intermountain West Communications and its local affiliates to a Nevada Attorney General candidate raised some ethical eyebrows as it was revealed.

Local NBC affiliates in Reno, Las Vegas and Elko made the contributions to Democratic Attorney General candidate Ross Miller, according to a recent article posted by Nevada Watchdog, a non-profit organization dedicated to covering Nevada state government activity.

“We do not take a position regarding the question of the ethics behind this practice, but we do believe the public should know the donations are being made,” Denise Roth Barber, managing director for the National Institute on Money in State Politics, said in the report.

But according to research conducted by OpenSecrets.org, media money in politics, whether local or national, is nothing new, and the more crucial aspect of the reality is the audience’s reaction to the donation rather than the media organization’s act of donating.

“Journalism is a reputational business,” Tom Rosentiel, director for the Pew Research Project for Excellence in Journalism, said in OpenSecrets’ report. “The appearance of a conflict of interest is the important thing, not necessarily whether or not [the donation] does influence content.”

 

 

 

 

Thought Catalog alleges bias in Washington Post piece

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The publisher and members of Thought Catalog, a popular site similar to Buzzfeed and Upworthy, are upset with Washington Post over the question of bias following an article published in the Post.

According to jimromensko.com, the Washington Post article, titled “Inside the contradictory world of Thought Catalog, one of the Internet’s most reviled sites,” is seen by the executive editor of the Post as, “fairly straightforward and expansively reported… [and] anything but inflammatory.”

However, as Romensko’s piece points out, Thought Catalog Publisher Chris Lavergne became aware of the apparent bias of the reporter of the piece, Tim Herrera, following its publication. Lavergne cited Herreras running of a blog titled “Thought Catalog Haters,” a tweet in which Herrera confirmed he ran the blog, and numerous other tweets in which he supposedly “expresses animosity towards Thought Catalog.”

While Thought Catalog publishes some material that may offend or insult many people across the media landscape, there appears to be a conflict of interest with Herrera being the one to write this Post piece, given his known and public disdain towards Thought Catalog.