How to be an ethical journalist...?

Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda: US Navy officer

and...

Arthur Ashe: Professional tennis player and Wimbledon Champion

What do these two have in common? They were both victimized by the news media. When is getting a good news story worth the harm and invasion of privacy? At what point have you gone too far?

These were the questions buzzing through my mind during class on Tuesday. And honestly, it's up to the journalist. But as a budding journalist, myself, I feel that it really is important to observe some ethical issues that have occured in the past, and to take my own stance. If I practice now, I think I'll be more prepared in the future when I'm faced with these.

First I want to talk about the men pictured above. We discussed their stories in class and both of them are tough calls for journalists. First, with Admiral Boorda, how would the "Newsweek" journalists who were investigating his Valor medals know that merely by asking a few questions, they would drive him to suicide? It's easy to look at his story now and blame the aggressive, villainous reporters for killing the innocent admiral. But really, before he killed himself, how could they possibly predict that he would do it? From the outside he seemed like any other public official: ready with his own little PR guy to face the news media and defend his honor. I would've run with the story and done the investigation. Even though it might portray him in a negative light, I would never have predicted the actual outcome.

But what about Arthur Ashe's story? Did he deserve to have his personal life displayed by letting the world in on his contraction of HIV? I understand "USA Today's" point that the story was certainly newsworthy. I think in this case, if Ashe expresses clear desire for his story not to be public knowledge, the media should have respected this. He didn't sign up to be a campaigner for HIV awareness, but that's what happened. Also, the story could've been run without his name, just to build HIV awareness and to highlight the progress of blood transfusions. My point is, this whole situation could've been handled differently. "USA Today" could've found a better way to follow the SPJ Code of Ethics and minimize harm, so they should've done so - even if it would take some of the sensationalism out of the story.

In class we discussed Dallin H. Oaks's devotional talk, "Where will it lead?" And we talked about how the media can be involved in the future of society. Here's what I think. as journalists we have such a power to influence public opinion. We have to take responsibility and use this power for the good of society. Yes, our stories and packages need to be interesting so viewers and readers will listen to them, but they don't need to be so sensationalized that ratings are the only things on people's minds. It is still our job to find news and report it and use our information to educate people. We have to do our job to help people make more informed, daily decisions. As a journalist, I realize that I'll face tough ethical situations where I'll have to make the call on whether or not to run a story or conduct an investigation or follow a tip.

Stories like Ashe's and Boorda's are tough calls, but they're the kinds of calls that journalists have to make - so what am I going to do? I'm going to do all that I can to be an ethical journalists and hope that I create more good in the world than harm in my journalism future.

Foundation and Purpose of Journalism

(The Picture to the right will be addressed later in my post - bear with me!)

Journalism worldwide is built on many different values. Wherever you go, you can observe that in different parts of the world, various news organizations have differing priorities. In class we talked about the most significant values in American Journalism. We discussed several values that Herbert Gans identified as the elements that make up the foundation of American Journalism. In a Press-think interview with Gans, they asked him questions regarding his journalism study published in "Deciding What's News." In his study he found that American journalists "absorb and express in their work... the ruling ideas in American society."

The idea inherent in his book that really interested me was that journalism in America has one purpose: the preservation and advancement of democracy. I think that it's good to have values, as a journalist, and it's good to recognize how you express your own values in your stories, but I think using journalism to advance a personal idea or belief, is one step too far. So, if Gans is right in saying that the subconscious values in American journalism serve the purpose of advancing democracy, I think we shoud do a bit of re-evaluating of our system. Even subconscious advancement of an idea, under the guise of objective journalism, is wrong. Journalists have more to do than support and advance an idea, which brings me to my next point: the purpose of watchdog journalism.

One of the key reasons for journalism in a free society is its purpose as a Watchdog - a watchdog for the government, for corrupt business officials, and for corruption in general. Anything that is under-handed and that negatively affects the public, needs to be exposed - and who better to expose it than journalists. The picture above is the logo for a global Investigative journalism organization, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. What really impressed me about this organization was the intense focus the individual reporters put on watchdog journalism.

But not many organizations have the financial means to support this intensive work to act as watchdogs like the ICIJ. I agree with the journalist in the AP Watchdog movie shown in class, Jim Drinkard, that you have "to be listening closely to what public officials say, and watching what they do." If these two don't match, there's your story. I really do think that watchdog journalism is important, and it is our duty. Because we have been given the constitutional right to a free press, we have the responsibility to serve the people by watching out for the public interest and protecting the innocent from corruption.

Why Independence is important in journalism

The picture above shows examples of the dangerous practice of commercializing journalism; I will delve more into my point of this picture later, so stay tuned!

When the group began their presentation, I wasn't really sure what to expect. What did they mean: independence in journalism? Independence from who? Well, here's the answer I gathered from the reading and from class: journalists have to maintain independence from pretty much everyone and anything but the truth. If they keep close personal ties with sources, story subjects, and even, in several cases, the government, their "news" can become unidentified advertising. Now this media advocacy has its value, and is good when used correctly. But the public has a right to know the difference between the facts presented through journalism and biased, media sales.

I found an interesting example of advocacy journalism in an article in the Columbia Journalism Review, and it was blatant advertising that was broadcast on a news morning show. It took a woman who was fired from her job for laughing, covered that newsworthy soft news event, while displaying her website information for her new pottery business that she was starting. They also announced how people could most easily do business with this person. It was a supreme example of taking a newsworthy event, and blowing it into some specialized advertisement. This is the kind of "news" that is hindering the news media credibility and thus, losing viewers.

My favorite principle mentioned in the presentation was taken directly from the SPJ Code of Ethics: "Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable." To me, this instructs journalists to never be afraid to do the right thing. I heard this and got all excited about the potential satisfaction that I can get by doing my duty as a journalist. But Professor Nelson said something that kind of busted my bubble. He said that the major media corporations live in fear of lawsuits, and while sometimes they stand up straight and courageously do the right thing, they usually are too scared to do so when faced with the disapproval of a powerful authority.

My spirits were further dampened when we started reading the examples on the group's hand-out of "Government Sponsored News." The Karen Ryan example really struck me, and what was even more disturbing was her excuse for taking government payment for a story: "I just did what everybody else in the industry was doing." Under the guise of a journalist, she essentially worked for the government. What happened to the first amendment? Isn't it still important to maintain journalistic independence from the government? I believe it is; this is one of the key components of maintaining democratic freedom.

Thus, going back to my headline picture, journalism should not be sold to the public, and commercialized. Journalists can't accept payment bonuses to cover stories because this disrupts the credibility of the news. The news media is not an advertising organization. We are journalists! And the public expects us to be independent from our sources so we can deliver the facts as straight and as unbiased as possible.

Journalism: The professional Priesthood?

Comic will be explained later on (oh, and in case you can't read it, the kid in bed represents "democracy" and the light represents "newspapers".

At first, like the group that presented, I was a bit put off by the book's claim that journalists carried out a professional priesthood. It did seem slightly sacrilegious to me. But I really liked how the group defined this term: "taking on the responsibility of surrendering to a higher calling-- serving others." While I don't think journalism is necessarily a divine calling, requiring the actual Priesthood, I do agree that when a person takes on the title of "journalist" he or she is surrendering his or her own needs to the greater good, to serve others.

I've always thought that this is true; it's one of the reasons why I think the news media is so important. I don't think we could live in a free democracy without the free press that we have today. I feel like journalists do a great service simply because the people are really the only people journalists owe loyalty to. The only reason for the news media to exist at all is to inform the public so they might make educated decisions. The cartoon shown above really hit me because it really showed me how vital a free press is to the survival of democracy. We really do have a "calling" whether it's divine or just a practical function of freedom, it's vital.

Tonight at my internship with ABC 4, I went out on a story and had an interesting experience with the concept of "Separation" as discussed in class on Thursday. We were covering a story about a girl who had been shot by accident by her 14-year-old aunt with a BB Gun. She was in intensive care in the hospital at the time when we aired the story and shot our live shot outside the hospital. Right after the reporter finished her package live intro and tag, she left, and the little girl's grandmother came over to me and the photographer and asked if we would like to hear the whole story for her. She wanted to do what she could to spread the word about this awful accident so it could be prevented in the future. As she was telling the very sad story, I found myself almost tearful. I was truly moved by the love she feels for her little grand-daughter. And I found myself subconsciously involved emotionally in the story. How do I stay separated enough to be neutral, but remain human enough to connect with my viewers? It's a fine, fine line we journalists have to walk. I'm including the link for the web-version of the story; what do you think? How objective should the journalist be when talking to a family member about this?

Finally, I want to address the newest concept for me that was included in the presentation last Thursday: Worldview. I found an interesting article from the school paper at the University of Washington that said that biases are inevitable in journalism, so instead of running away from them and striving for objectivity, we should embrace them. It said that even in how journalists arrange their facts, they put a little bit of their worldview into everything. To me, worldview is a person's fundamental outlook on all aspects of life, derived from early childhood and maintained by their immediate environment. I think journalists are like ordinary people with their own worldviews.

However, I also think that when "on the job" it is our responsibility to strive for a broader more encompassing worldview, so we can relate to more people on different levels of communication. Instead of just being concerned with our immediate "bubble", we have to be concerned with all that goes on that affects our readers, viewers, and listeners. To do this, we have to have a greater understanding of people in general. I found a really good quote in a Nieman Report article that sums up, in my opinion, why journalists must expand their worldviews:

"If we don’t understand how they see the world, if we can’t empathize with each person’s need to grasp a human problem in language of his or her worldview, then we will likely fail to reach many Christian conservatives who have a sense of morality and justice as strong as our own."

Business of Journalism

I had some mixed feelings about the journalism profession after our discussion in class on Tuesday. I feel like we as journalists are supposed to be bound to the public, and we should make decisions that benefit the "greater good" as far as when or when not to publish a story. But after talking about the business aspect of journalism, I felt like we also owe a certain amount of allegiance to the people or business who pay us. How are we supposed to continue in journalism if we can't keep the industry running? How are we even supposed to do our jobs and serve the people by feeding them the information they need if we can't afford to put on a news cast or print the newspapers? Clearly money is important in journalism, but I still cling to the ethics of journalism as far as reporting the truth (no matter who that truth puts in a bad light). Here's what I think about pleasing the corporations who sponsor the news: journalists should never be disrespectful, vengeful, or unprofessional when exposing anyone in a negative light, but in the end, you will be rewarded for telling the truth.

Here's the deal: the news media organizations that are still alive today, survived because of their devotion to the truth. The Pentagon Papers issue is just one example. Who exposed it? The New York Times. Who carried it after the government halted all NYT publications? The Washington Post. Both of these papers are alive and running today, why? They have maintained public trust and therefore, have kept their readers reading!

Sure journalists will always struggle with that paradox that Bro. Campbell talked about in class of how to balance two main objectives: 1) obligation to society and 2) satisfy employers' financial success.

But I believe journalists can achieve both. In class we talked about how people have an inherent thirst for news. The people want to know what's going on in the world around them. And sponsors will be happy as long as viewers and readers and watchers are happy.

Finally, I think when making the decision of whether or not to publish a story, a journalist should definitely have the final say-- NOT a business man who heads a corporation. And a journalist should always refer to the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ)'s code of ethics. If we strive to seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable, we'll be rewarded in the long run, even if at times it seems like the rough way to go.

Integrity goes a long way; and people will be recognized for how honest they are, especially when involved in the journalism business.

Truth and Ways of Presenting it

We talked in class on Thursday about "Truth". Whenever I'm asked about what my purpose is as a budding journalist, I say automatically "to find the facts and report them." Our book said that virtually all journalists agree with me and identify their primary goal in five words: seek and report the truth. This is a great ideal to aim for, but what exactly is "the truth"? And how do so many different news sources take the same facts and portray them in such different ways? Are all of them telling the truth? Sometimes we wonder if any of them are telling the truth. Here's the deal: people are all different and, unlike computers, people will automatically form different judgements and opinions about the facts they hear. No two reporters will tell exactly the same story even if they're both getting their information from the exact same press release. And you know what? I'm glad!

The point of journalism is not to merely regurgitate the facts verbatum. The people watching and reading the news like to hear and see the different presentations of the news. They like to be informed, but they like to hear the stories. Also, I think taking the facts and finding a person and telling that person's story is the most effective process of communication. People will listen better when they're interested, and people are interested in other people. So I think that the humanization put in every story to make each reporter's "style" unique, is a very good thing. However, when will journalists know when we go too far, and cross the line, by turning factual accounts into biased, personal perceptions?

Journalists tread a fine, fine line. On one hand, they have to be interesting to watch and read and listen to, and they have to tell the story in an entertaining way or no one will listen. But on the otherhand, they must steer clear of weighted representations and opinionated responses, especially when they claim to be presenting the "objective" truth. Some journalism organizations believe the way to go is to never claim objectivity in the first place; here's where we get the "Polarized Pluralist" model. I agree with Bro. Campbell that this model is the trend that our news media is moving towards. Beginning with the reporters across the British continent (BBC) and moving all the way to the "talking heads" on our own news media networks, viewers across the globe are becoming more and more "tuned-in" with the most opinionated people.

But I see a danger with this trend. Eventually, as we continue in this direction, people will only watch and read the ideas of journalists who share their own biases. People will only get news the way the want to get it, and everyone's ideas and personal opinions will start to be contained in these little, one-sided boxes. People will be less free-thinking, and continue to be more set-in-their ways. So, why not turn to the "Democratic Corporatist" model? Umm... ya, I think history has shown us why this might not be the best idea. Let's take a look at our own country: the government regulated press was one of the grievences that sparked the American Revolution and it lead to an entire AMENDMENT in the constitution to keep the press free of governmental control. And think if that wouldn't have been there... what would've happened with Watergate or Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.

So it looks like our best option is to stick with the "Liberal Model". I think this is the best way of portraying the news because it gives the journalists the most freedom to cover newsworthy events. Also, it gives them the least amount of "pulls" for potential biases. With this model, I think we give the people the best packaging for their information. I truly believe that the main responsibility of journalists today is to do just that: package the information that's scattered out in the world and compress it so people can understand what's going on around them.