Ethical decisions are important,
sometimes carry a cost
by Jeff Kocur
I am encouraged by the stories of some former students who have encountered ethical dilemmas at their college newspapers.
One of my former students resigned as managing editor at a college newspaper on the East Coast after he said he watched his editor-in-chief repeatedly breach standard journalistic ethics in gathering and reporting information. Several other editors accompanied him in his very public resignation.
Good journalists act as a watchdog and expose the truth even though it may have a cost. This journalist had the courage to accept a very personal cost when he saw the editor-in-chief operating in a way that was not acceptable, and he did journalism a favor by standing up to it.
Will it change anything? Will the editor-in-chief understand his breach of ethics? Will he ever work as a professional?
I don’t know.
I do know that my former student, who is enrolled next year at the Medill School of Journalism for a graduate degree at Northwestern University, understands clearly what harm can be done by acting unethically in his profession, and I hope we see more people coming into this profession that see things like he does.
For more information about this situation: http://www.thejustice.org/forum/alleged-sexual-assault-represents-problem-with-greek-life-1.2988498#.UUC0ctHF1uI This commentary in the other campus newspaper at Brandeis discusses the issue at the Hoot, which was one of the three reasons the editor resigned. It also discusses several other things connected to the issue, but not specifically related to the ethics of the editor’s actions.
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Educate • Advocate • Empower
JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee Mission statement:
• To educate school and non-school communities about how the substance and spirit of First Amendment protections support free and journalistically responsible student news media in their role in 21st century learning and civic engagement.
• To advocate for student news media that demonstrate free expression and journalistic responsibility, enhance student decision-making and protect proponents of a free student media in their pursuit of high standards of journalism.
• To empower student journalists to exercise First Amendment rights and responsibilities and engage in ethical decision making through accurate, credible, verifiable and thorough journalism. Student journalists and the communities they serve thus benefit.
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Tweet23: Social media use requires legal, ethical guides
Social media can be daunting. Know how journalism standards, legal and ethical principles apply. #25HZLWD http://jeasprc.org/tweet23-social-media-use-requires-legal-ethical-guides
Social media are merely other tools in the arsenal of journalism. Social media offer student journalists much in the way of new approaches and coverage possibilities, but like all “new” communication tools of the past they also bring fear and unease. It is imperative that schools and their student media understand and rely on the “legacy” standards of professional journalism, legal and ethical. It is undeniable that new legal and ethical standards will develop, building on the old. Until they do, we can rely on what exists for essential guidance.
More and more scholastic journalism programs rush to join the social media landscape, adding Twitter, Facebook and all types of other quick and digital ways to reach audiences with their coverage.
Some have even gone so far to call media prepared by non-journalists the fifth estate, replacing the fourth estate (to be henceforth called legacy media).
One has to wonder, though, whether the fourth and fifth estates will be that different, indeed, whether they should be that different.
The point, we must argue, is to keep and embellish the basics, the good, from the legacy media and surround it and enhance it with the multimedia approaches of the fifth estate.
In fact, we must also build our programs so they can embrace change and expand as new media emerges.
Resources:
• Social Media Toolbox
http://hendricksproject.wordpress.com/
• Social Media, the classroom and the First Amendment
http://1forallnet.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/classroomguide-final-12-13-111.pdf
• JEA online ethical guidelines
http://jeasprc.org/online-ethics-guidelines-for-student-media/
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Educate others about journalism’s role, skills for our future
Tweet-22 Educate others about journalism’s role, skills for our future. #25HZLWD
http://www.jeasprc.org/tweet22-educate-others
Journalism and democracy were born together.
Democracy cannot long exist without an active and professional journalism program. But today’s journalistic role has changed.
We can no longer just deliver information. We must make sense of the world and also help citizens make sense of the flood of information that surrounds them. Transparency is one way.
Citizens have rights, but also responsibilities, when it comes to news.
In an expanding era of media literacy, journalism students have a real opportunity – and an obligation – not only to do the reporting but also some of the teaching.
Resources:
• Journalism’s moral responsibility: Three questions
http://www.poynter.org/uncategorized/2242/journalisms-moral-responsibility-three-questions/
• ‘Just the facts’ isn’t good enough for journalists any more, says Tow Center’s journalism manifesto
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/196457/just-the-facts-isnt-good-enough-for-journalists-anymore-says-tow-centers-journalism-manifesto/
• Principles of Journalism
http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles
• Citizen journalism publishing standards
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/07/citizen-journalism-publis_n_184075.html
• Attack dog, watch dog or guide dog…The role of the media in building community
http://www.pewcenter.org/doingcj/speeches/s_batonrouge.html
• Online journalism ethics: Guidelines from the conference
http://www.poynter.org/uncategorized/80445/online-journalism-ethics-guidelines-from-the-conference/
Lessons on ‘things we did not want them to know’ result in successful action against censors
by Gloria Olman
Hazelwood stories: Twenty-five years before the Hazelwood Supreme Court decision, I was defending students’ right to publish on topics from a teacher strike to locker searches and letters to the editor.
“I will defend your right to publish all the way to the Supreme Court, but it will be on a serious matter, not a gossip column, and you will have covered all sides of the issues,” I repeated each school year.
After four years, I moved out of state. Returning, I tried to substitute teach in that district but was not hired. “You were teaching students things we didn’t want them to know… …yes, the First Amendment.” That was still prior to the 1969 Tinker and Zucker decisions.
By 1977, I was advising in a different district and always gave the principal a heads up on issues. While he did not always agree with the paper’s content, he expressed his opinion to the students and never interfered with publication. The Hazelwood decision did not change that relationship. However, it did reinforce the importance of educating students on laws, ethics, rights and responsibilities. They needed to understand, not only to be responsible journalists, but also to defend their rights to sometimes hostile faculty members and others.
When a new principal dismissed my protest that he had no legal grounds to remove a story and I refused to do it, he “directed” me to pull it. Students took over, using lessons from our September discussions. As they prepared to file their case, my life became increasingly difficult. Some faculty members and coaches refused to allow the paper sold in their classrooms or to be interviewed. They also would not talk to me. District administrators regularly met with me, trying to limit the paper’s content and to remove me as adviser. It was a miserable time.
Hazelwood cast a pall on scholastic journalism. Advisers may fear loss of tenure and/or job, and allow administration to overrule them on issues. Others may lack journalism background to build and defend programs. Complicating this, administrators often have been given false or misleading information related to student media. This impacts the struggle to establish open forum status as district policy.
Another significant Hazelwood effect is the increase in self-censorship, the “we can’t print that” often heard at workshops and continuing on to college journalism classes.
Yes, Hazelwood did affect my teaching. The principal’s directive led to the 2004 Dean v Utica Community Schools U.S. Federal District Court decision. That case has been called the most important legal victory for student media since Hazelwood, and a turning point in the struggle against increasing censorship. It was a serendipitous end to my career.
Gloria Olman, MJE, is the 1992 Dow Jones News Fund Journalism Teacher of the Year, and taught at Utica High in Michigan.
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