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Why we’re moving forward with realism, yet optimism

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A message from the Center’s new director, Katy Culver

As I take the reins as director of the Center for Journalism Ethics, I’m finding great meaning in assuming this role during graduation season at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I look at the young people leaving our program and heading out into the world, and I’m optimistic about the future of journalism and the ethical practice of it.

This is not to say both the news business and its standards don’t face challenges today. I haven’t been hiding under a rock. I see clearly that business models are strained, attacks on press freedom are abundant, and truth is a concept eluding some politicians and their supporters.

Yet just this week, one of my young graduates published work that reminds me of the tremendous promise of journalism and how our digital age affords creative ways of doing this critical work. Alison Dirr is a crime and justice reporter at the Post-Crescent in Appleton, Wisconsin. Back when I rode my dinosaur to graduation, that would have meant covering the community for local readers of a print edition.

For Dirr, it still means that. But because the Post-Crescent is owned by Gannett and now a part of the USA Today Network, it also means she had vastly expanded reporting capacity this week as she covered some local school closings in response to bomb threats. Using the brand new – and thoroughly exciting – USAT Network model, she was able to discover that these threats were part of a nationwide wave, wrought by automated calls in at least 18 states. The Appleton community was alerted to its threats and closures. But her reporting took on importance of national scope.

I know the public’s trust in “the media” is low. I think work like Dirr’s helps build that trust. It demonstrates to our fellow citizens that when something affects our community, we will investigate it and inform them.

The truth is this: Journalism likely has never faced the significant and sustained challenges it faces today. Yet the journalism itself has likely never been better. And citizens have likely never needed deep, verified, courageous and sustained journalism more.

When truth is threatened, democracy is on the line. Journalists are our front-line defenders of truth.

Do some get it wrong? Of course. Sometimes for the worst of all reasons – ego, competition or a misguided need to be fast instead of accurate. But other times simply because we’re human.

A few years back, a city editor at a local paper asked me if I thought it was ethical to encourage kids to go into a business under so much strain. His shrinking newsroom, he said, was not a happy place to be.

After I recovered from the momentary stun of the cynicism of that question, I responded that I couldn’t imagine giving anything less than my full-throated encouragement to any young person who thinks of doing this work. They aren’t going to make a fat salary doing it, but they have options in local newsrooms, new digital models, and innovative efforts by national and international organizations. It would unethical to discourage them – both for their own interests and those of the citizens they will one day serve.

I’m glad I’m not alone in that view, as Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan vividly demonstrated this week.

I look forward to the Center for Journalism Ethics playing a role in encouraging the kind of journalism citizens need. In part this means championing important journalistic work that demonstrates valuable ethical practice. In part that means bringing journalism’s failures to light, a sometimes-uncomfortable yet absolutely central task. And finally, in part it means sharing information and insights to improve journalistic practices and to help the public have a voice in the things we do.

It’s been my privilege to be a part of this Center for its first eight years, and it’s now my honor to lead it into its next phase. I come to this challenge with realism, but also with optimism. I see the future of journalism in my classes each day, and it looks quite bright to me.

Photo by Bryce Richter/UW-Madison

AP team accepts Shadid award

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The enslaved men interviewed wanted so badly to let their families know they were alive that they wanted reporters to use their names and faces.

But, the reporters knew their sources could be killed for talking.

This dilemma soon became how to best tell the story of slavery without endangering their sources.

“We had to make a decision for them, and whether we were going to put brave men in danger,” Robin McDowell, one of the reporters, said. “Do we take away power of the story that they so bravely chose to tell, and weaken it?”

McDowell and Martha Mendoza accepted Friday the 2016 Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics at a ceremony. Esther Htusan and Margie Mason were also part of the reporting team on “Seafood from Slaves,” which uncovered slavery within Southeast Asia’s fishing industry. The also was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for in Public Service.

The Shadid award, which is presented by the Center for Journalism Ethics, each year recognizes stories that maintain high ethical standards while serving the public interest. The award is named in memory of Shadid, an alumni who died in Syria while reporting for the New York Times.

Shadid committee chair Jack Mitchell said the winning story exemplified careful, ethical journalism.

“Good journalism is journalism that worries about what stories will mean to those who are involved in the story,” he said.

Focusing on those involved in the story was central to the AP’s reporting. As the team told the stories of men who were kidnapped and tricked into slavery, they knew it was important to protect their sources. Mendoza said they called their editors and presented them with their limited options. They could not blur the faces because it is against the AP’s guideliness. They could use silhouette footage, which wouldn’t show the desperation of the men’s faces. Or, they could try to free their sources.

“The editors were rather swift, and said, ‘Well, that sounds like the best plan, do you think so? Yeah, that sounds like the best plan,’” Mendoza said. “I could hear the other reporters breathing across the line, and they were like ‘Uh, so guys, what do you know about freeing slaves?’”

The women then got in touch with contacts in immigration services, and freed the men who helped them tell their story.

The awareness created by the story has freed even more slaves, led to dozens of arrests, seized millions of dollars of seafood and alerted the U. S. Congress to loopholes in federal laws that have allowed slave produced seafood to end up on American plates.

While the story exposed corruption within the industry, there is still much to be done, according to McDowell.

“We’re very happy with the impact our story has had, but it hasn’t scratched the industry as a whole,” McDowell said. “On the corporate end, Whole Foods, Walmart, and Red Lobster have done little to nothing in response.”

Throughout writing the story, Mendoza said the team of reporters had many ethical conversations with their editors, as they were concerned whether the story was becoming one of advocacy journalism.

“When we went to our editors and said this might be happening, the answer was: ‘If you think there are slaves there you have a moral imperative to go look,’” Mendoza said.

While their editors decided it was ethical to advocate against human trafficking, they didn’t allow Mendoza to accept invitations to Congress or the Vatican. Accepting these invitations would put her in a position of advising policy, she said.

The impact of the story on the industry contributed to its Pulitzer Prize win last month. But, McDowell and Mendoza, both of whom had worked with Shadid at the Associated Press, said the this award meant more to them.

“You know, they say Pulitzer Prize is one of those things that goes on your obituary,” Mendoza said. “But fighting for ethics like this, in a company the size of ours is a discussion and a challenge, and it’s definitely what Anthony would be all about.”

Carly Schesel, originally from Chippewa Falls, is a sophomore double majoring in journalism and political science.

Education and race panel addresses timely ethical issues

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Nikole Hannah-Jones, a writer for New York Times Magazine, said it is ethically imperative that re-segregation of America schools should be on the radar of every education reporter in America.

“The ethical implication is an ethical failure,” Hannah-Jones said. “I don’t understand how one can write about education and not write about these racial issues.”

Hannah-Jones and other panelists at “Race, Ethnicity and Journalism Ethics” conference agreed April 29 that journalists have a responsibility to cover racial disparities and make the public aware about its problems.

The panel Hannah-Jones sat on was one of four panels that discussed the ethical obligations of news organizations to cover and engage with race. The theme chosen for the eighth annual conference of the Center for Journalism Ethics was particularly timely because of the racial issues and demonstrations on the UW-Madison campus during the past year.

Panelists and moderators argued that the traditional views of objectivity and fairness in covering racial issues is often problematic. Several panelists acknowledged that while it is impossible to be completely objective, reporters should go into stories aware of their own biases and try not to make up their mind about a story first.

Hannah-Jones said although racial issues can be an emotional topic, good reporting should be rooted in evidence. If a story is based on verifiable facts, no one can claim it is unfair, she said.

A student-led social media campaign in the past month that uses the moniker #TheRealUW shed light on the racism and discrimination minority students face and has received wider news media coverage.

Kiara Childs, a student of color at UW-Madison, said that these racial events on campus are traumatizing because they make minority students feel unwelcome in the place where they live and attend classes.

Childs said that reporters add to the problem by avoiding the truth when covering racial issues.

“I think some reporters have a romantic view of this university and don’t fully understand the depth of the terrible racial climate on campus,” Childs said. “Reporters have ethical codes to follow, but they also hold biases.”

Childs agreed with panelists who said that a good way for journalists to improve their coverage of racial dynamics is to do their research on race and inequality.

Lisa Gartner, who won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting at the Tampa Bay Times, said journalists should get out and talk to people who are affected by these issues.

Childs said Madison reporters can learn from #TheRealUW to understand the group’s mission the problems it’s trying to address.

The racial issues in education are real, and should not be dismissed by the news media, she said.

“Equality on this campus is important for all,” Childs said. “Reporters have a voice to work toward that.”

Maggie Baruffi, originally from Kenosha, is a junior at UW-Madison studying reporting and strategic communication. She is in Prof. Stephen Vaughn’s Intermediate Reporting class this Spring. 

Photo of Nikole Hannah-Jones by jentricolello.com.

Join us for live web streaming during the conference

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To find the live stream, choose the current panel from the schedule below.

8:50 Opening remarks
9 Keynote address
(not available for live streaming)		 Nikole Hannah-Jones New York Times Magazine
10 Panel — Representing Race: Language, Imagery, Sources and Issues for Journalists Sue Robinson, moderator UW-Madison SJMC
Henry Sanders Madison365
Patty Loew UW-Madison Life Sciences Communication
Alan Gomez USA Today
11:15 Panel — Education Matters: Covering Racial Dynamics and Examining Journalism’s Role Rachelle Winkle-Wagner, moderator UW-Madison Education Leadership and Policy Analysis
Sue Robinson UW-Madison SJMC
Nikole Hannah-Jones New York Times Magazine
Lisa Gartner Tampa Bay Times
12:15 Lunch
12:45 Shadid award presentation Jack Mitchell, Shadid committee chair UW-Madison SJMC
Nada Shadid, award presenter
Robin McDowell Associated Press
Martha Mendoza Associated Press
1:45 Panel — Questions of Justice: Crime, Inequality and News Media Hemant Shah, moderator UW-Madison SJMC
Katy Culver UW-Madison SJMC
Mike Koval Madison Police Department
Matt Braunginn Young, Gifted and Black
Jaweed Kaleem Los Angeles Times
3:15 Plenary Session — Tomorrow’s Work: Moving Forward on Race and Journalism Keith Woods, moderator NPR
Maria Len-Rios University of Georgia
Brent Jones USA Today
4:30 Closing remarks

Please join us online today for a full complement of live coverage of the conference, including:

  • streaming video
  • Twitter and Instagram feed at #uwethics
  • opportunity to ask questions of the panels
  • links and other resources
  • archival coverage of past conferences

View the program book

Preview program book

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The program book for Friday’s conference Race, Ethnicity and Journalism Ethics is available for preview.

Inside you’ll find the day’s schedule, speaker biographies, and sponsor information.

Check out the program before you come to Union South or use it to follow along from home while you watch our live stream of the panels.

2016 cover art

2016 cover

3 winners of 2016 Pulitzer Prizes to speak at conference

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Journalists from two reporting teams who earned Pulitzer Prizes Monday will participate in the Center for Journalism Ethics conference April 29.

The conference – Race, Ethnicity and Journalism Ethics – will explore critical questions surrounding how journalists reflect and represent racial diversity through news coverage.

One important intersection between news and race involves coverage of education. Lisa Gartner of the Tampa Bay Times will discuss her team’s “Failure Factories” series, which earned a 2016 Pulitzer for Local Reporting. The series explored political decisions that resulted in degradation of a county’s schools, with disastrous consequences for black students.

An Associated Press team of journalists won the 2016 Pulitzer for Public Service for a deep investigation into slave labor in the international seafood trade. The team’s careful consideration of risk and ethical choices in reporting also earned them the Center’s Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics. Reporters Martha Mendoza and Robin McDowell will receive the award on behalf of the entire team and reflect on their reporting and decision-making during a luncheon session at the conference.

Online registration for the conference, which includes the luncheon, is open through Friday, April 22. Visit http://go.wisc.edu/ethics2016 to register.

In addition to these prize-winning journalists, 15 expert panelists are on board to address key questions through four panels.

  • Representing Race: Language, Imagery, Sources and Issues for Journalists
  • Education Matters: Covering Racial Dynamics and Examining Journalism’s Role
  • Questions of Justice: Crime, Inequality and News Media
  • Tomorrow’s Work: Moving Forward on Race and Journalism

The panelists will join Nikole Hannah-Jones, who will deliver the keynote address at 9 a.m. Hannah-Jones reports on racial injustice for the New York Times Magazine and recently won a George Polk Award for a “This American Life” series on school integration and resistance to it.

The conference is supported by generous donations from the Gannett Foundation, the Evjue Foundation, the Wisconsin State Journal, the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation, WPS Health Solutions, the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.

This is the eighth annual conference of the Center of Journalism Ethics, housed in UW-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Founded in 2008, the Center’s mission is to foster vigorous debate about ethical practices in journalism and provide a resource for producers, consumers and students of journalism.

For a full slate of panelists and registration information, visit http://go.wisc.edu/ethics2016.

Online conference registration is here.

Read more about the conference.

This post was updated April 20.

Newsroom diversification not silver-bullet solution

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While diversifying the newsroom, or hiring more journalists of color, is a frequently suggested remedy and a positive first step to better coverage of race and ethnicity issues by mainstream journalists, Sue Robinson said it is not enough.

Robinson, a former journalist and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, studies media discourse around race and ethnicity, especially focusing on conversations about inequalities.

“We have to get more representation of all our communities in newsrooms so that all of our communities have a bigger voice in our mainstream dialogues,” she said. “That said, the danger with merely relying on hiring more people of color is that it absolves everybody else in the newsroom from doing the hard work of understanding their own implicit biases and privilege.”

Additionally, relying on newsroom diversification can create token race reporters, she said.

“They get pigeon-holed into writing about issues of race for a lot of different reasons, some of which are very logistical,” she said. “At the same time, those journalists might want to be an education reporter or they might want to do politics. It ends up almost being racist because you discount the full experience that those people might have.”

On April 29, the final panel at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Journalism Ethics’ Conference on Race, Ethnicity and Journalism Ethics will begin to address next steps. What are some solutions? And how can they be implemented?

But even if diversifying the newsroom were a silver bullet solution, implementing such changes is not without challenges.

For Phil Brinkman, city editor at the Wisconsin State Journal, it starts in the hiring pool.

“We feel the real lack of diversity in our newsroom,” he said. “We live in a very white community, a very white state and we’re just not getting the candidate pools that we need.”

The State Journal has received only a handful of applications from journalists of color over the last couple of years, he said, noting that it will take a combined effort from both newsrooms and journalism schools.

“I would like to do whatever we can to increase our hiring of candidates of color, but j-schools need to make that a priority, too,” he said. “We need a better pipeline.”

Jordan Gaines, UW-Madison senior and editor of the Black Voice predicts that relatively non-diverse cities do not appeal to young journalists of color who are applying for jobs.

“I think the obvious considerations when applying are probably quality of city and then the presence of other people of color,” she said. “And it’s not that realistic for Madison.”

Fortunately, Gaines sees other areas where local outlets could enhance coverage.

“The big one that I think of is diversifying the people journalists contact,” she said. “A lot of times, we have these go-to folks, especially when we’re talking about marginalized communities. Because of that we don’t have intersectional people that we talk to who represent different types of identities.”

Journalists will need to do a better job of getting into communities to expand this contact list, she said.

In addition to diversifying the workforce and sourcing, Robinson said the responsibility rests on individual awareness.

“Most newsrooms do a diversity training – and that’s good. That’s all really good,” she said. “But I also think that we need privilege training beyond that. We need the personal understanding of one’s own role in the complicitness of reinforcing white supremacy within structures that are in place today.”

But it can’t stop after the workshop name tags are tossed. The training and discussion must be built into newsroom practice and culture more permanently, she said.

“It has to be ongoing, so that it’s not just a yearly workshop, but an ongoing conversation that happens in the newsroom,” she said. “Just like how many sources you need, how many inches you have and what the deadline is. It has to be part of that structure.”

Less mainstream media privilege benefits race justice in crime reporting

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The way people sound when they speak, chatter, and laugh may lead to discrimination, police investigation.

Jennifer Stoever, a media and literature scholar at Binghamton University, called this phenomenon “sonic color-line” in a recent book. That is, people in color are often stereotyped and mistreated in turn by their vocal or audio traits.

Stoever said sound-based discrimination is particularly problematic for crime reporting, as such attitude has its deep root in the source most relied on in crime reporting — the police.

African-Americans  are often accused of being loud in public spaces for example, she said. A loud car stereo was once used as an excuse for the police to stop the drivers and investigate other crimes, Stoever found in her study.

On the other hand, after interviewing many people of color, Stoever found that the “authoritative voice” the police are trained to use when they are talking to people in high-crime rate communities actually sounds aggressive. The police tone and posture sometimes can escalate the situation, she said.

If adopted by journalists in their reporting, such authoritative voice, together with the stereotype image of less disciplined people in color, can circulate fears, said newly elected Dane County Circuit Court Judge Everett Mitchell.

Mitchell, also a pastor, is concerned about creating a healthy relation between the offenders and victims after a crime. People who committed a crime should be given a second chance and be able to be accepted back in their communities after the rehabilitation, he said.

The disparity in criminal justice system has been existing for generations in Dane County, with more prosecutions in certain communities, Mitchell said. Those communities are particularly hurt if the restoration of crimes is not going well.

Also, even crime rates sometimes do not give the full picture, said Leland Pan, Dane County District 5 Supervisor. Some communities may have a “suppressed crime rate” because of their reputation for safety.

According to Pan, District 5 has a large student population, which is overwhelmingly white and consists of people from wealthier families.

“Crimes by white males are under-discussed,” Pan said. White students feel more liberty in grey areas as their misconducts are less likely to get reactions from both the victims and the supervisory forces on campus.

Even though on-campus crimes tend to get a lot of media attention, rarely is that coverage about white aggression toward people of color, Pan said. Students of racial minorities sometimes are unwilling to report hostility to them because they are prone to be associated with offenders instead of victims.

As the newsroom demography gets less racially diverse and more socially privileged, journalists’ source network clings more tightly around the established power center, Hemant Shah, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in a talk.

The mainstream news media also hold the prejudice toward alternative media promoting ethnic or racial voices, excluding them from professional journalism, Shah said.

For example, The Capital Times published an opinion article by Paul Fanlund, executive editor, in February about how the mainstream news media in Madison had been greatly contributing to the conversation about racial issues in the past few years.

A few days later, Madison365, a progressive non-profit media, aired a radio program criticizing the Cap Times article for its condescending tone and mainstream limitation.

“There have been only certain groups of people that are able to talk about these issues when it comes to the mainstream,” one of the hosts said, pointing out that the increasing coverage mentioned by Fanlund in his column was predominantly about the advocacy groups the mainstream media found worth reporting.

The mainstream media always have a patronizing gesture as if they “discover” those long-existing racial inequality problems, even though we have been covering the same issues for ages, said the hosts, who are also from communities of color.

This border between professional journalism and progressive journalism needs to be eliminated to include more minority voices in mainstream media, Shah said. He also encourages NGOs and other public agencies to coordinate between minority media and advertisers to form a more sustainable financial model for minority media.

Shah will moderate a panel for race and crime reporting during a journalism ethics conference held by the University of Wisconsin-Madison on April 29. Register for the conference here.

Conversations on representation can benefit, learn from self-representation

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Patty Loew, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, said discussion about how journalism can better represent communities of color often leaves out those who are already using media forms to self-represent.

“Mainstream media doesn’t always stop to ask how communities of color are self-representing,” she said. “Many are making space to create their own representations.”

Loew is a professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication and affiliated with American Indian Studies.

When journalists try to address misrepresentation and misguided reporting on communities of color, this discussion is often geared toward how the professional industry, predominantly white, can do a better job of reporting, she said.

But, the Native youth she works with through the Tribal Youth Media Initiative produce their own work. Loew and the initiative coordinate with Don Stanley, Life Sciences Communication faculty associate.

“Tribal Youth Media gives youth the chance to represent themselves through digital storytelling,” Loew said. “It’s a really powerful thing to be apart of.”

The initiative brings together a team of graduate students who work with Native American teens to produce video stories about their tribes and communities during the summer. The project runs annually and involves week-long instruction on digital media production.

Ahpahnae Thomas, a junior at Mellen (Wis.) High School participated in the program several times.

“We go out and sort of have a lot of adventures in the wild around the Bad River Reservation,” he said. “Then we make short videos about things we experience.”

Participants like Ahpahnae not only shape content, but they also have the opportunity to interact with media forms they are passionate about.

“With the video production, we had to add music to it, and we created our own music,” Ahpahnae said. “That’s what I like to do. That’s my thing.”

Shania and Ahpahnae

Ahpahnae Thomas composes music while Shania Jackson films. Photo courtesy Patty Loew

Since its inception, the Tribal Youth Initiative and its participants have produced award-winning films which feature community-generated representations of Native communities.

Ahpahnae’s mother, Jean Hahn-Thomas, had the opportunity to chaperone one film festival invitation. She accompanied members of the Tribal Youth Media Initiative in 2013 to Arizona where the participated in the Human Rights Film Festival at Arizona State University, as well as other local showings.

The film featured the natural wildlife that would be affected by the construction of a proposed four and a half mile open pit iron ore mine in Northern Wisconsin, located directly over the Bad River Watershed.

The question and answer session following a showing at a local Arizona school stuck with Hahn-Thomas, in particular.

“Because in Arizona there is a lack of water, the students in the audience were interested in what they could do help to stop the mine from going up which would have polluted the water and dried up the artesian wells,” she said. “It was really good for the kids – both those in the audience and those from Wisconsin.”

The mine project was put on hold in spring of 2015.

“This project shows the kids that you can, with simple things, produce something that people will care about, and it just gives them a completely different perspective on what they can do,” Hahn-Thomas said. “And no matter what the outcome of their short video is, it’s theirs. It’s what they put into it.”

The Tribal Youth Media Initiative is just one of many organizations that are amplifying  the self-representation of communities of color.

Simpson Street Free Press on Madison’s South Side is a neighborhood-based nonprofit that trains young students, often from diverse backgrounds, in journalism. Young writers have the opportunity to write from their own experiences and interests.

Similarly, Lussier Community Education Center is working with University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism students to development and launch a low-power, community FM radio station at 95.5 and online, which will in part highlight the experiences and interests of communities of color on Madison’s west side.

Among others, these organizations are participating in recent conversations on representation of race in the media – not necessarily through letters to the editor, but through the creation of their own media content. And while this does not address all of the work that must be done in media industries to better represent communities of color, it is one step that should be recognized.

“It was nice to be able to share what we learned and have other people see things from our perspective – a different view from our situation,” Thomas said. “And I know was it was really fun to do.”

Loew will appear on a panel addressing media representations of race and ethnicity during a journalism ethics conference held by University of Wisconsin-Madison. Henry Sanders of Madison 365 and will also speak on the panel, moderated by University of Wisconsin-Madison Assistant Professor Lindsay Palmer. USA Today writer Alan Gomez will also join the panel.