When sources don’t respond QT35
Guideline:
The publication staff will provide every reasonable opportunity for sources to respond to a request for an interview. Students must first attempt to contact the source in person or through an administrative assistant. If the person is not available, they should attempt calling and leaving a message with a request for an in-person interview. If, after 24 hours, the source does not respond to the telephone call, staffers should send an email requesting an in-person interview with a clear deadline by which the staffer will include the line “the source did not respond to an interview request.”
Social media post/question:
What to do when a source does not respond?
Stance:
Publication staffs must make all reasonable attempts to secure an interview, and if they cannot get a response from a source, they must develop their credibility and show the reader they made an attempt to interview a source, but the source did not respond.
Key Points:
An easy way to stop or stall a story is to make sure the students never get an interview with the people who have the information. It’s easy for a source to ignore a request for an interview. What is your responsibility as a publication when reasonable attempts are made to secure an interview, but the source does not respond?
Reasoning/suggestions:
To maintain credibility with their readers and/or to show balance, publication staffers must show they followed proper procedures to offer right of response or to obtain pertinent information for a story. When a story goes out with important sources who have been omitted, readers have a right to question the veracity or intent of the story. Always let your readers know who you contacted for the story even if they ignored or rejected your request for an interview.
Read MoreUsing online legal resources
Part of JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission’s Constitution Day lessons and activity package:
by Chris Waugaman
Three primary Common Core state standards addressed
(see http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy )
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.2a Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information so that each new element builds on that which precedes it to create a unified whole; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
Brief goal/outcome statement: Intended to be a lesson for use after initial introduction lessons in Scholastic Press Law for journalism I students. Students should be familiar with the Hazelwood case before beginning lesson plan.
- Students will use their skills at gathering information and using online sources to guide them in times of legal uncertainty.
- Students will learn how to make critical decisions regarding their press rights by applying the case outcomes they learn in this lesson.
| • COMPREHENSION | • PRACTICE | •APPLICATION | • REFLECTION |
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Incorporating ethical guidelines into social media use: Part 2
In the first part of this series, Marina Hendricks, a commission member and student in a social role of the media class, talked about how scholastic media might create tools in the growing use of social media. Now, others in the class offer additional comments and suggestions.
This piece will suggest guidelines – and hopefully raise questions – about principles behind such tools in three key areas: information gathering, reporting and promotion, perhaps the most problematic new area of social media use. Overall, students in the class say the legal and ethical principles guiding social media use are the same as traditional, or legacy, media.
Key areas students focused on and their comments:
Information gathering
• Information gathered online should be independently confirmed offline. Interview sources in person or over the phone whenever possible. Students would verify claims and statements. This includes crowdsourcing.
• Correspondingly, the instantaneous time element makes it more difficult to verify spot news, so be upfront about non-verified info. In fact, don’t run anything on social media students have not verified.
• Specific links (not just click here) should be provided to attribute the source/attribution for any online resources used or indicated.
• Be transparent with the audience as well as sources. Let them know how you contacted people, in what context you gathered the information and how you verified it (or didn’t).
• Student journalists who insist on avoiding social networks are likely to miss good opportunities and great stories. If all your sources came from the Internet, they would skew toward the more affluent and educated. When you interview people digitally, you miss a lot of good information. Journalists must strive for diverse representations of sources in their stories.
• These new tools can generate story ideas, allow readers more interaction with the reporters, and increase the reporter’s ability to find sources and network. These are certainly excellent additions to the tool belt of resources reporters have available to them to do their job.
• Social media will not replace traditional reporting; its primary purpose should be in making initial contact with subjects or verifying quotes and facts after an interview.
Objectivity and credibility in reporting
• When using social networks, nothing can call into question the impartiality of student news judgment. Student media must never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism. … This same caution should be used when joining, following or friending any person or organization online.
• Ensure informed consent. It’s easy for sources to misunderstand your intentions. It is your responsibility to tell them who you are, what you are doing and where your work will run. Take special consideration with children and other vulnerable people. When contacting children, make sure they connect you with a responsible adult.
• Breaking news posts – all news posts – must be approved by a student editor. No exceptions.
• The student media site will not publish images from social media networking sites.
• Typos, biased language and even possible outright privacy breaches posted by individual reporters, acting without a system of checks and balances, will call into question the professionalism of student media and challenge its credibility.
• If the audience perceives biased or unfair coverage, they will no longer trust the student media as news sources and the capacity for elevating community dialog to issues of importance will be lost.
Promotion of student work
• Professional material (reporting and leadership) should not mix with private or promotional materials.
• It is important and valuable to promote our work through social networks. Student journalists bear most of this burden. But the newsroom as an institution is responsible for some of this work. When promoting your work:
- Be accurate. It’s easy to sensationalize or oversimplify.
- Be clear. If you are not a good headline writer, seek some training.
- Always include a link and make sure the link works.
• Journalists must recognize that everything on their social media has the potential to influence their reputations and by extension newsroom credibility.
- Don’t post information that could embarrass you or your newsroom, even if you believe your page is private.
- Use the tools, such as limited profiles and privacy settings, to restrict access to your most private information.
- Recognize that your actions can be misinterpreted. You may sign up for a group to get story ideas, but people may see you as a fan. State your intentions often, in wall posts and other notifications. When appropriate, tell groups when you are signing up that you are looking for story ideas.
- Manage your friends and their comments. Delete comments and de-friend people who damage your reputation.
- Social media could also enhance our outreach to the community. Using tools such as Twitter and Facebook, we can push students to our website by letting them know what stories we have recently posted. We can advertise when we are next distributing our newspaper. We can solicit story ideas, invite letters to the editor, or request feedback while we are in the process of putting our paper together. From a strictly practical standpoint, social media can allow us to let others see the great work we are doing more frequently, and, hopefully, engage them in a more earnest discussion about our role in the school.
- Social media opens journalism to be a more two-way form of communication. Reporters can find the people they need and readers can interact with the people their story had an impact on almost immediately. They may not like everything sources or readers tell them, but at least there is feedback.
Resources used for these points
• “Social Media and Young Adults”
• Newspaper social media policies: Out of touch
• Journalists use of social media
• Using email as a reporting tool
• Online journalism ethics: A new frontier
• News organizations work to set social media policies
• Online journalism guidelines: guidelines from the conference
A tip of the hat to these 10 wonderful students, all journalism educators or commercially working journalists, who helped sort through these and other resources: Andrew Christopulos, Traci Hale Brown, Marina Hendricks, Judy Holman Stringer, Trevor Ivan, Lori King, Kate Klonowski, Jeff Kocur, Dino Orsatti, Chris Waugaman.
What points would you add, subtract or question?
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