While I was going over the San Jose Mercury News searching for ethical dimensions, I came across an article about a discredited article regarding the presidential campaign. (The discredited article is on this web site called "Insight"). The article that I read in the newspaper that talks about that, if you want to look at it is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/us/politics/29media.html?bl=&ei=5087%0A&en=51e1677efef21c5a&ex=1170306000&pagewanted=print
In the article, the reporter discussed how the editor of Insight web site, Jeffrey Kuhner, published an anonymous smear by anonymous reporters with anonymous sources.
After taking journalism classes, I learned that in the profession it is important to credit your sources and to know what you're talking about. What striked me the most after I read this article is that I didn't even think that there would be such an issue knowing that professional journalists should already know what to do/what not to do.
This also caused controversy in the news media because it mentions that commentators and TV hosts had actually picked up the web site's discredited article and cited information that they didn't even know was accurate or not.
Another interesting thing I discovered is that they mention how the Insight web site doesn't use bylines because they want to encourage other reporters to contribute when they can't write anything they know under their own names for fear of editors' biases and such. Also, it mentions that the web site has limited budget and aren't able to send correspondents to confirm all the facts of a story. My question is: is this even possible???
Personally, I think that this web site's anonymity and writing reports using anonymous sources with no byline is ethically wrong. I don't think it's professional at all and I was surprised to find that that such a dilemma has come about.
Other questions I thought about for future cases like these....
1. Can editors/journalists decide whether or not to keep their sources anonymous, even if the source(s) had already agreed to be named?
2. When commentators and TV hosts, or other journalists plan to cite information from other articles, are they normally required to confirm all the information given, even if the article they cite has already been published? Or do they just assume that since the article was published, the information in it is accurate?
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1 comment:
Good comment. This story has more layers than an onion. This whole episode illustrates, as you suggest, that a principled journalist considers very carefully the credibility of sources, both individual and institutional. Based on what I've read this Insight Magazine does not practice real journalism. Looks as if it makes up information or chooses to rely on sources who make up information knowing that Insight will pay for certain kinds of lies. Much more could be said, but this is a key point for me: It seems to me that news consumers need to show some ethics of their own. They need to keep track of which news sources mispresent the facts and twist judgments and which don't. I know this is hard, but too many of us simply want to have our prejudices confirmed. And magazines like Insight -- and personally I would say Fox News -- have figured out that playing to what we would like to think is true can pay off. You find this on both the left and right, though I notice more misconduct on the right. Challenge me as appropriate!!
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