Ethical Journalism Weekly Roundup: May 13th, 2014

If Headlines Treated Women Like People, Not Objects

Women’s media criticism blog Vagenda Magazine asked their Twitter followers to normalize snarky headlines about female celebrities — and the Internet delivered. Check out some of our favorite improved headlines below, and see more at the hashtag #thevagenda. (via The Huffington Post)

MU Presents Arabic Online Media Ethics Guide

The guide is well thought out and its sections cover news judgment and conflicts, transparency, sourcing ethics, knowing your audience, plagiarism, when problems arise, photos and art, and social media. (via Media Unlimited)

Approaches To Digital Fact Checking Across The World

At the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, delegates were treated to an occasionally heated debate over fact checking from the founders of leading websites from around the world. (via journalism.co.uk)

Some News Sites Cracking Down On Over-The-Top Comments

Attention, reader comment-board trolls: News sites are getting tough on your crude, your rude and your sometimes lewd postings. (via The Washington Post)

Still Talking About It: ‘Where Are the Women?’

After three decades in journalism, I find it hard to believe that – while things have changed radically in some ways – there’s still such a gender imbalance. At the International Journalism Festival in Italy earlier this month, I was part of a panel called “Where Are the Women?” Sitting there, discussing the paucity of women in journalism leadership globally I had a surreal feeling: Are we really still talking about this? (via The New York Times)

Violence And Harassment Against Women In The News Media

This report provides the first comprehensive picture of the dangers faced by many women working in news media around the world. It describes the types of violence and threats female journalists encounter and considers how these incidents affect their ability to conduct their work. The report identifies trends among reported incidents and offers suggestions about what individuals and organizations might do to mitigate the dangers of reporting in hostile environments and provide a safe working environment at home. (via The International Women’s Media Foundation)

Journalists Do A Lousy Job Reporting On Health Studies, Researchers Find

Researchers found a lot to be dissatisfied with in a review of nearly 2,000 stories about “new medical treatments, tests, products, and procedures.” Most stories were “unsatisfactory on 5 of 10 review criteria: costs, benefits, harms, quality of the evidence, and comparison of the new approach with alternatives,” Gary Schwitzer writes in a report published by JAMA Internal Medicine. (via Poynter)

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Photo credit: Flickr CC Pedro Ribeiro Simões