Trading Tragedy for Technology at Tech

One year after the Virginia Tech shootings, The Roanoake Times, proposed a new multimedia means of storytelling to document the feelings of the faculty and students at the university. On the anniversary of the tragedy, reporters were live blogging at the cite of the school's memorial candle while others were taking audio clip interviews and sound bites. With all of these mediums, the Times hoped to capture a story that, "continues to affect this region, and the nation, every day."

While the Virginia Tech shootings, along with the NIU tragedy, have forced colleges and universities to rethink their student services and safety programs, I don't think the affect of the shootings was profound enough to warrant such intense media coverage. If every tragedy were treated with such extravagance, we'd be celebrating a sad anniversary every day. The Times' idea of multimedia coverage is a great one, but I think it is wasted on an event that isn't really an "event." Students and faculty are likely trying to get on with their classes and their lives, and while I'm sure they have intense feelings about the tragedy, it seems as if the media are provoking them into creating a story rather than covering something that is actually happening.

Any school shooting is a tragedy, and our nation should remember those who so needlessly lost their lives and work to reach out to those who are in need of help before such acts of violence occur again. The Roanoke Times should be covering the anniversary of this sad event, but it should not be using the occasion to try out its new media methods or to re-open the still-smarting wounds of a community that has just begun to heal.

Us on U.S.

Their reputation for bad grammar and personal ranting aside, I've been trying to give blogs their due credit, and am finding that they are a great source to find all of people's frustration on the media. From personal to professional blogs, our classroom discussions to our papers, it is apparent that we are being beat over the head with examples of how the public "doesn't care" and therefore, the media will not cover specific events -- at the peril of our democracy.

One blog in particular that I found was linked up to the SPJ site, al-Sahafiyeen. The author of the article, RayHanania, expressed disgust at the lack of coverage by national and local news of the problems and mistakes surrounding the Iraq War and the current administration:

"Over the past few years, the U.S. Attorneys office has indicted, charged, prosecuted and convicted a handful of managers at Halliburton and KBR involved in bribe-taking and corruption. Another case is being prosecuted this week, but you wouldn't know about it, except that "another" Iraq war corruption case is being vetted by the Government."


What especially caught my eye on this particular blog though, was this observation by the author:

"The cases have been sent to low-profile regional federal court rooms, prosecuted under the national media's radar screen (as if we even have one, really). The latest invovles Jeff Mazon, a guy from suburban Chicago (my neck of the woods otherwise I might not have even seen anything about these cases) tied to Halliburton and KBR. He's being tried in Rockford, Illinois and it is being covered by Iowa's Quad-Cities Times (thankfully one paper is interested)."

As someone who received the Quad-City Times for most of their life, I happen to know that they have very little interest in exposing national crises and cover-ups, but are instead scraping to find local stories with any kind of relevance. It is this particular knowledge that has shown me how happy many newspapers are to be ignorant, and it makes me feel incredibly cheated.

While I believe most papers would argue that they are using their ethical codes to decide what they cover in regards to relevance, I question the standard of what these papers may consider "relevant." I believe that it's relevant that the government is trying is darndest to cover up any mistakes it possibly can, but the QC Times may think it's more relevant to tell me about Dr. Phil's latest "good deed" or an update on how the Illinois rest stop system is developing. Consumers of news need to demand relevance in regards to what affects them in their daily lives-- and be specific.

A Fair Warning to Journalism

In what has now become a tradition, an online source has yet again taken the major media to task. The Smoking Gun, a Web site that promises, "exclusive documents" that are "cool, confidential, [and] quirky", recently claimed that the L.A. Times used fake documents in an interest story on deceased rapper, Tupac Shakur. Russ Stanton, the most recent top editor at the long-troubled Times, encouraged a full inquiry into the background of the documents which were found to be false.

While it is embarrassing for mainstream journalism to be called out and reprimanded by smaller, less prevalent news sources, Poynter Online's Bob Steele points out the real problem as quality control in the newsroom. In his article, he provides an outline for how to investigate such charges as those made by The Smoking Gun. These, in turn, give insight to journalists on how to gather valid information efficiently. Some of his suggestions are specific to the situation of the Times, but pose excellent questions as to the ethics of the changes being made in the media industry:

• Did the reporter on the story have enough substantive conversations with his editor as the story was developing? When did those conversations take place?
• What questions was the editor asking the reporter? Were those questions rigorous enough given the nature of the story, the scope of the assertions and the weight of the accusations?
• When and how were the questionable documents obtained by the reporter?
• What process was used by the reporter and editor to scrutinize the source of the documents as well as the source(s) for other key pieces of information in the story?
• What process of verification and cross-checking was applied to various pieces of information provided by sources, including the documents that now appear to have been a hoax?
• Were assumptions made at key points that needed greater challenging? If so, why didn’t that happen?
• At what point were other editors brought into the process to weigh in on the methods of reporting, writing and editing the story? What expertise and perspective did those editors bring to the process?
• What questions were those editors asking? What questions were not asked that should have been asked? Why weren’t those other questions asked?
• Were there contrarians among those involved in the reporting and editing on this story?
• How and why were decisions made about presenting this story first on the Web site and then in the newspaper two days later? Were those decisions driven by journalistic purpose or by other factors? Did those decisions affect the checks and balances process for vetting this story?
• Have recent cutbacks in staffing at the Los Angeles Times and the loss of some veteran editors affected the quality control process on stories like this one? If so, how?

To maintain quality in our major and minor newsrooms, we must look to the ethics that we abide by. To be ethical is to investigate -- not to take all sources and documents at face value. Consider this a wake-up call to the current and future news gathering community: Keep your staff and quality, or lose your credibility and your integrity.

The Long Arm of the Law: Should It Include Journalists?

The Society of Professional Journalists recently took on the Bush Administration, the Department of Justice, and the Senate in an attempt to encourage the passage of a new section of the Free Flow of Information Act which would protect journalists from having to testify in legal cases or reveal their sources in court.

People have been speaking out to politicians such as Joe Lieberman to fight against the amendment in the belief that it would, "make the United States both less secure and less free by subverting the enforcement of criminal laws and the Federal Government's investigatory powers" (Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, 2008). On the other side, journalists argue that this new section will encourage people to speak out as well as help the public's right to know.

The exact language of the amendment was not included in the SPJ's article, but a Web site by the Dept. of Justice has been set up to provide a forum for viewpoints on it.

From an ethical standpoint, journalists should not have to reveal their sources. The promise of anonymity to any informant gives citizens incentive to share whatever information they may have. Journalism is our greatest monitor of power, and the public plays a crucial role in maintaining that position. While law enforcement is also vital to the health of our nation, the people's right to give and receive information is the very foundation of our country and its values.

Why are journalists stuck in 1984?

J. Patrick Coolican, a writer for the Las Vegas Sun, has recently confessed one of the major slip-ups of journalists that especially tends to show itself in the campaign season. In an article for Poynter Online, Coolican admits the influence of "groupthink" when journalists spend too much time together on the trail. This constant interaction often leads to the group coming to a consensus about an issue, i.e.~ Clinton is winning, Obama was hurt in the long run by Reverend Wright's comments, McCain is too old to assume the presidency, etc. Instead of each journalist providing their own view of the action, they rely on each other to come to a conclusion of how the story will be presented. While this is mostly unintentional on the part of the journalist, the temptation to follow what the crowd is thinking is strong.

The effect of groupthink, or as journalists call it, a "narrative", is that the many nuances of a story are lost to the public when all of the storytellers seems to be saying the same thing. At the very worst, journalists could ultimately agree on certain "truths" that later prove themselves to be false, to the major disadvantage or detriment of the public. While several journalistic ethical codes warn of aligning with people and companies outside of who the journalist works for, this aspect seems more difficult to prevent. Journalists have a responsibility to the public, but they are only human and are open to the influences of others. In a time when fewer people are trusting journalists, it seems that the they are more willing to put more trust in each other.

For Future Reference . . .

While doing research for our ethical case studies this past week, I ran across an interesting story in the Society of Professional Journalists' magazine, the Online Quill. The story had to do with a college journalism class, not dissimilar to our own Media Ethics course, that had to learn an ethical lesson in one of the most terrifying ways possible. In the wake of such tragedies as the University of North Carolina and Northern Illinois University shootings, this is a story that every young journalist should read.

NBA (No Bloggers Allowed)

How powerful have blogs become? It seems that they have gained so much influence that they have been banned from the some of the locker rooms of the National Basketball Association.

The Society of Professional Journalists complained to NBA Commissioner David Stern last week after the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mike Cuban, created a policy that officially bans all bloggers from the locker rooms where journalists have traditionally been allowed to gather to cover the sports beat. The reasoning behind this new policy is that there is a space concern, meaning that all journalists would not have the room they needed to cover the NBA "fairly".

With fairness as a defense, it is interesting that the only blogger to be specifically removed from the locker room was Dallas Morning News blogger Tim MacMahon. It was also noted that MacMahon had, incidentally, written an unflattering story about Maverick's coach, Avery Johnson. While all of the official newspaper and broadcast writers were allowed to stay, it makes one wonder if bloggers, despite their influence, are truly respected in the news industry.

Though many breaking stories in recent years have been released by bloggers, their position as legitimate news gatherers seems to be questioned by the creators and consumers of news, or in this case, the news subjects. While it is true that anyone these days can have access to a blog, (as shown here) this should not determine who can and cannot have access to the information that creates news. Blogs are certainly not the oldest and most respected of media forms, but they have proven themselves again and again as a way to reveal the truth more quickly and to a wider audience. To discount the bloggers becomes an ethical issue of who the "real" news gatherers are, and who has the right to say who is legitimate or not. Finally, to specifically move a journalist of any medium, as Mike Cuban did, not only raises the suspicions of the concerned public, but also goes against our vital sense of freedom of speech and information.