User-generated content
Ethical guidelines
Journalists should treat user-generated content the same as any content they create in terms of accuracy, verification, credibility, reliability and usability.
Given its growing use by various forms of media, student journalists should develop guidelines on how, when and why it should be used.
Staff manual process
Student journalists should establish a plan to vet all information and images before publishing them. All journalists should be trained in the use of this plan.
Suggestions
Before your students publish information or images from anyone outside the staff:
• Independently verify and validate it
• Positively identify sources
• Verify sources what sources say with other trusted sources
• Check for copyright infringement
• Verify the location
Resources
How is User-generated Content Used in TV News, Neiman Lab
Guardian Launches Platform for User-generated Content, The Guardian
How Journalists Verify User-generated Content, Information on Social Media, The Poynter Institute
Ethics Guide: User-generated content (UGC) and Comments, Gatehouse Media (GHNewsroom.com)
Tools for Verifying and Assessing the Validity of Social Media and User-generated Content, Journalist’s Resource
How Storyful is Shaking Up News Reporting With User-generated Content, The Content Strategist
Accuracy and Accountability Checklist for Social Media, Mandy Jenkins at Zombie Journalism
Sponsored content/native advertising
Ethical guidelines
In the last several years, commercial media have faced a new kind of paid content — “native advertising” or “sponsored content.” The goal with this content is to provide advertising in a way that mimics the look and style of news/editorial content instead of appearing as traditional advertising. This style of advertising has raised serious ethical issues and discussion.
Given the influx of this type of advertising and its spread into scholastic media, students should remember their obligation to keep their communities aware of what kind of content they are publishing. Communities need to know the type content they are exposed to so they can make informed and rational decisions.
Staff manual process
Student staffs should retain the right to publish or not publish “native advertising” or “sponsored content” just like they would for any other advertising so long as the decision is viewpoint neutral.
- If students decide to run such materials, they should develop a statement for that clearly explains what it is, why it is being presented and how audiences can expect it to appear. This should be included in each publishing.
- Appearance guidelines could include such statements as:
- Ads should run in a different font and point size from all other text.
- Ads should be clearly labeled at the top of each article and/or the top of the page, indicating who paid for the ad.
- Ads should include identification at the bottom of the piece explaining what paid content is and why it is being used.
- If the material comes camera- or website-ready, then clear separation from other content is essential.
Resources:
Making Memories, One Lie at a Time (example of native ad), Slate Web magazine
New York Times Tones Down Labeling on Its Sponsored Posts, Advertising Age
Native Advertising Examples: 5 or the Best (and Worst), WordStream Online Advertising
The Native Advertising Playbook, Interactive Advertising Bureau
Audio: Sponsored Content, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
PR Giant Edelman Calls for Ethics in Sponsored Content, Forbes
FTC: Publishers Will Be Held Responsible for Misleading native Ads, Adexchanger.com
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Read MoreVisual reporting
Ethical guidelines
Journalists are charged with documenting what’s happening in the world around them by capturing and presenting images. The way journalists obtain access to capturing these photos and video footage is just as important as the images themselves. Deciding which visual elements to use in telling a story — as well as which to exclude — plays a role in the story’s meaning.
Photojournalism and multimedia often cross the boundary between neutral and subjective for exactly this reason — the audience expects images to convey emotion or perspective in ways that news stories, or words themselves, do not. While these images are no less “true” than a story explained in words, it is possible to construct a reality out of images that might be slanted, even unintentionally.
Students should consider not only the news value of an image but also the emotional effect of the image on the audience.
Student media should avoid electronic manipulation that alters the truth of a photograph unless it is used as art. In that case it should be clearly labeled as a photo illustration.
Staff manual process
Students should develop a set of news values to use for evaluating an image prior to publication. These news values can help students determine when an image is relevant and necessary. Similarly, students should consider the same ethical principles applied to stories. Students should carefully consider any content that could be harmful, emotionally traumatizing or unnecessarily graphic.
Suggestions
When constructing a process for determining whether to publish an image, students should consider many questions, including:
• is this image important and relevant to the story?
• What makes it meaningful?
• Will the audience understand the information conveyed without reading any accompanying text?
• What story does it tell?
• What story would others be able to get from that photo?
• What, if any, warnings should accompany online content?
• Is there an alternative, better, way to show the story?
Resources
Lesson: To Print or Not to Print, Journalism Education Association
Lesson: A Picture Never Lies, Journalism Education Association
Lesson: When Journalists Err Ethically, Journalism Education Association
Lesson: Pushing Photo Editing Boundaries, Journalism Education Association
Lesson: With Freedom of the Press Comes Great Responsibility, Journalism Education Association
SPJ Code of Ethics, Society of Professional Journalists
NPPA Code of Ethics, National Press Photographers Association
Photojournalism ethics needs a reexamination, The Poynter Institute
Visual ethical guidelines join online, yearbook ethics, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Audio: Using Images from Social Media, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee Press Rights Minute
Audio: Ethics in Editing News Photos, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee. Press Rights Minute
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Read MoreGoing online? Consider these points before you decide
by John Bowen
Scholastic journalism educators over the summer devoted a lot of time and discussion about whether print is dying and whether their programs should switch to digital first or digital only. Before advisers and students make a decision to move totally online, think about and discuss these points:
Fond du Lac English department statement
should be guide to those who face review
When the Fond du Lac English department issued a statement supporting embattled student journalists there March 21, they signaled clear support against those who would censor student expression.
We urge other groups in high schools across the country follow their lead, especially if their student media labor under prior review.
[pullquote]We urge other groups in high schools across the country follow their lead, especially if their student media labor under prior review.[/pullquote]
Students at the school have faced censorship since their principal imposed new prior review directives March 10 following student publication of “The “Rape Joke” story, a look at what student journalists felt was a “culture of rape” at the school and focused on three students who said they were raped.
Important parts of the English department statement include:
• …“The story, itself, stands as an exemplar of high quality, responsible journalism that has helped countless readers feel supported, speak up, seek help, and come together in a way that has undoubtedly resulted in a more positive environment in our school. We need more stories like this one, not fewer.
• “The fact that the new guidelines were drawn up so quickly, in defiance of past precedent, without warning or consultation with the school newspaper advisor or staff or other interested parties, and in the most restrictive form possible has the students worried that such stories, while powerful and community-building, may be controversial or not be “positive” enough to gain future approval.
• “Our students, allowed some freedom to work together to think critically and make informed choices on their own along with the guidance of a highly qualified instructor, are capable of truly amazing things. Such work should be celebrated, not censored.”
The group also urged the superintendent and school board to support the open forum for student expression and to drafted new guidelines “in collaboration with students, community and experts in the field” to accomplish that.
We absolutely agree, for these reasons and countless others:
• No one has ever demonstrated legitimate educational rationale for prior review. Defenses almost always come in the form of public relations and personal administrative preferences. Not even the Hazelwood decision supports that.
• Academic rigor and civic engagement require student decision-making and critical thinking where students apply the principles they learn. Anything less prevents the authentic learning a journalistically responsible student media must demonstrate.
• A free and unfettered journalism is at the core of a democracy. If students see they cannot practice what they are taught, they will come to see that democracy as flawed, unreal and unworthy of protection.
• Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in The Elements of Journalism and its follow-up book Blur, say journalism’s first obligation is to the truth. Achieving that, through accuracy, balance and coherence of content cannot occur under the practice of prior review.
• In Blur, Kovach and Rosenstiel emphasize the discipline of verification, which is also limited if not impossible in an atmosphere of prior review.
• We strongly support the Questions about Prior Review the department mentions as they substantially reflect JEA policy and beliefs.
We strongly urge English departments, social studies departments, parent booster groups and any citizen or educator who supports learning and rigor in schools to examine the Fond du Lac English department statement.
The statement provides a summary of essential positions JEA and other scholastic media groups have advocated for years. For more about those beliefs and principles, go here.
[pullquote]Whether we teach freedom of expression in English and journalism, social studies or news/media literacy, we must practice that belief or all the rigor and literacy we give lip service to will be shallow, meaningless words.[/pullquote]
As we move forward with authentic learning, expanded news literacy and civic engagement, we must prime our students with real practices that reflect what they are taught.
Whether we teach freedom of expression in English and journalism, social studies or news/media literacy, we must practice that belief or all the rigor and literacy we give lip service to will be shallow, meaningless words.
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