Feature articles

Join us Friday April 5 for our 5th annual ethics conference: “Who is Shaping the News?”

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Save the date! Our 5th journalism ethics conference will be Friday, April 5, 2013 at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery in Madison, Wisconsin. It will be our biggest conference yet. This year, a distinguished and dynamic group of journalists and scholars will explore “Who is Shaping the News? Academics, Corporations, Critics.”

Award-winning investigative reporter Lowell Bergman will deliver our keynote speech, and we will present this year’s Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics. Panelists include CBC producer Ira Basen, CNBC senior correspondent Scott Cohn, CJE’s Katy Culver, Andy Hall of WisconsinWatch, media scholar Lew Friedland, Lorie Hearn of Investigative Newssource, investigative journalist Brant Houston, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jan Schaffer, journalist and scholar Lee Wilkins,

Breaking Down the Wall

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Once upon a time, running a newspaper was a fairly simple proposition.
I’m not talking about those golden days before the Web destroyed newspapers’ carefully crafted business model, although in retrospect, those decades of double-digit profit margins and a near monopoly of news in local markets do seem pretty sweet.

Of Vultures and Watchdogs

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Nelson Mandela is a national treasure for South Africans. Our government recently issued new banknotes with Mandela’s face on it, a daily reminder of the social, cultural and political capital that the country’s first democratic president created. Mandela is also globally admired. So it’s understandable

After September 11 . . . 1973: Chilean Journalism at the Crossroads

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On the morning of September 11, 1973, as the jet fighters completed their bombing runs, a column of thick black smoke rose from “La Moneda,” Chile’s presidential palace. Tanks and infantry closed in on the rubble-strewn building in preparation for the final assault. The attackers were Chilean military personnel lead by General Augusto Pinochet,

The Ethical Character of Public Broadcasting

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The presidential election campaign has stirred debate over the role of government, including taxpayer support for public service media. Much coverage has focused on possible cuts to shows like Sesame Street, and its iconic Big Bird. Long-time public broadcaster and executive Bryon Knight reminds us that funding for public media buys us more than Big Bird. It supports a locally based system of public service that is accountable not to advertisers and shareholders. It supports a service accountable to all citizens.

Brand Journalism

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In this article, journalist Ira Basen asks a pointed question: Is the growing trend of ‘brand journalism’ — corporations producing ‘content’ to promote their brands – good or bad for journalism and the public sphere? Is it ‘really’ journalism, and how do we define journalism anyway? If skilled journalists produce accurate articles for corporation web sites and magazines, who cares if it is not produced by the mainstream news media?