Social media reporting is now a staple of newsrooms, particularly as stories now break on Twitter and Facebook well before getting to any media outlets. Those efforts have been bolstered by tools that constantly comb through Twitter and find people reacting to breaking news. Yet one shocked source was inundated with requests on Twitter from reporters while the Oregon shooting was still taking place. Are journalists “just doing their jobs” or have we crossed an ethical line? (Read more on Mashable)
You don’t hear this every day: A British climate scientist told the UK Times he was afraid someone put a hit on him because of his knowledge about ice thickness in the Arctic. But when the story went to print, he complained to press regulator the Independent Press Standards Organisation that his comments were not only misrepresented, they were off-the-record. (Read more on iMediaEthics)
Michelle Boorstein, who has been the religion reporter at The Washington Post since 2006, decided she was going to report on Pope Francis’s historic visit to Washington, rather than reporting to synagogue for services on Yom Kippur, the culmination of the Jewish High Holidays and one of the year’s holiest days. Its a unique challenge facing many religion reporters like Boorstein when there is the need to be in one place as a person of faith, and another as a reporter. (Read more on the Columbia Journalism Review)
The “Build Your Own Ethics Code” project, led by veteran journalist Thomas Kent, standards editor of The Associated Press, involved more than 20 journalists working together for more than two years and soliciting input from many more journalists throughout North America. The initiative is rooted in the premise that beyond a few fundamental and unassailable principles, journalistic ethics cannot be cast in stone and that policy and practice can — and does — vary across news organizations and among individual journalists. (Read more on The Star)
To meet the increasing demand for our work helping journalists around the world combat propaganda, disinformation and interference government we are asking for your help.
