Journalistic Ethics, Lec 3, Communications Studies 187, UCLA
Course Description: Intensive examination of ethical and policy issues arising from interaction of media institutions (print, film, broadcasting, and new technologies) and societal institutions (Congress, federal agencies, courts, Presidency, schools, churches, political action groups, advertisers, and audiences).
About the Professor:
Jim Newton is editor-at-large of the Los Angeles Times. He serves as a member of The Times’ editorial board, advises on editorial matters and writes and edits for the editorial page and Op-Ed. Previously, he served as editor of the editorial pages, supervising the editorial board and overseeing its work as well as the Op-Ed page, Sunday Opinion and letters to the editor.
A 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Times, he has worked as a reporter, editor and bureau chief and has covered, among other beats, the Los Angeles Police Department, the administration of Mayor Richard Riordan, federal law enforcement and state and local politics.
Duration : 1:10:33
Please help me answer this question about technology and computer ethics?
You have applied for a job as a reporter for a newspaper. Your journalistic skills are excellent; however you are not a touch typist, and your typing speed is very slow. For this reason, the managing editor is reluctant to hire you at the position’s salary. How would you react to the situation? Is the editor right? Should keyboarding skills be a requirement for a job? Would you be willing to learn how to type or accept the job at a lower salary?
Typing on a keyboard is not as important as it use to be. There are several software available that can translate your spoken word to the keyboard.
Character recognition software also exist that can translate your written text to words.
If the newspaper is a low tech environment then yes keyboard/typing skills would be important. If the newspaper office is high tech then your salary should depend on how good is your work.
You could also ask the editor if you could take a lower salary on the condition that you would be reevaluated in six months and your salary increased if your work merits it.
Journalistic Ethics, Lec 2, Communications Studies 187, UCLA
Course Description: Intensive examination of ethical and policy issues arising from interaction of media institutions (print, film, broadcasting, and new technologies) and societal institutions (Congress, federal agencies, courts, Presidency, schools, churches, political action groups, advertisers, and audiences).
About the Professor:
Jim Newton is editor-at-large of the Los Angeles Times. He serves as a member of The Times’ editorial board, advises on editorial matters and writes and edits for the editorial page and Op-Ed. Previously, he served as editor of the editorial pages, supervising the editorial board and overseeing its work as well as the Op-Ed page, Sunday Opinion and letters to the editor.
A 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Times, he has worked as a reporter, editor and bureau chief and has covered, among other beats, the Los Angeles Police Department, the administration of Mayor Richard Riordan, federal law enforcement and state and local politics.
Duration : 1:4:22
Is it appropriate for a columnist to take on readers on a message board?
This is a bit of a journalistic ethics I’m wondering about here. When I worked on a paper years ago, it was considered bad form for a columnist to snipe back at a reader who sent a critical letter, such a letter would be printed without commentary. Now these articles are online and usually have a comment board, so do the same rules apply? Is this a forum for the reader or for the writer too?
Unfortunately rules of etiquette seem to go out the window on the net.
I personally do not think it is right, however I do not believe it is illegal either.
Journalistic Ethics-Possible conflict of interest- youth journalism program-Need Insight?
I work for an after school journalism program. We provide outlets for youth volunteers to work after school on professional news stories for print. We advertise ourselves as a professional news service. Recently one of our volunteers came up with a new story idea and while looking for proper interviewees one of my co-workers/managers suggested my team set up an interview with a service that could provide insight on the story. It has come to my attention that the service my manager suggested actually EMPLOYS her. For my own part, my team has no intention of coddling or advertising for this service. We just want information, insight and the rest. However, this might be a "conflict of interest, real or imagined" and it would be up to me to cancel the interview. I need a decisive answer soon.
As long as no money changes hands = OK.
If she gets money for this = bad.
Offensive speech and journalism ethics, Stephen Ward, Part 1
News stories can offend readers: how should journalists decide what to publish? Stephen Ward, professor of journalism ethics, discusses offensive speech and journalism ethics.
Duration : 0:7:3
Have journalistic ethics declined?
Climate change, and the link to human activities, is a well established fact to the great majority of climate scientists. Yet the main-stream media give as much space to climate change deniers as they do to climate scientists, in spite of the lack of credibility of the former.
Does this indicate sloppy journalism, sensational journalism, poor journalism, lowest-common-denominator journalism, or all of the above?
Your answer was a reasonable one Stirling, but you are wrong when you say "There seems to as many experts who don’t believe that it is occurring as there are who do". If you accept that the experts are climatologists rather than geologists and non-scientists, then almost all the experts accept that the climate is changing and is caused by humanity.
WebHelp; Lord Christopher Monckton is not a climate scientist, he is not a scientist at all. He is a very glib climate denier – to me that is not sufficient to make him an ‘expert’. The other names were not familiar to me.
Journalistic standards have certainly declined over the past 20 years, as shown by the dramatically deteriorating quality of TV news programmes and of newspapers. Very few exceptions.
Several things
Deliberate disinformation campaigns, spreading blatantly false statements such as "There seems to as many experts who don’t believe that [global warming] is occurring as there are who do", picked up in all good faith no doubt by people like Sterling
(We know from polls that a strong majority of scientists, and over 90% of those who really are experts on climate, believe that anthropogenic global warming is happening; the number who believe that global warming as such is happening must be even larger)
Journalists with poor scientific background and inadequate resources, who don’t have the time or knowledge to read, say, 1 million words of hacked e-mails and accept what they are told at face value (the BBC, no less, highlighted the words "hide the decline", written in 1999 when there was absolutely no question that temperatures were rising)
Journalism as entertainment. Money that should be spent on investigation going to pay the salaries of anchors or wafflers. Anyone can make good TV out of an argument, however bogus, but making good TV out of complicated science is much more difficult.
The plausibility of specious "tell both sides" propaganda. If this reminds you of the "controversy" over evolution, it should.
I used to give my chemistry classes a lecture on the "hole" in the ozone, and how its cause was identified. At the end, one student came up to me and said "why do I have to know this stuff? I’m a journalism major."
Journalism Ethics
Excerpts from a lecture/discussion on ethics in a journalism class in Zaqatala, Azerbaijan. Sept. 10, 2008.
Duration : 0:5:50
Has ideology over-written journalistic ethics in the American mainstream media?
We have a corrupt government (in BOTH parties, for all you partisans), we have corruption in our corporations, and now it appears we have corruption in our media. The media was supposed to be the watchdogs over ALL people in power, but it no longer seems to be the case. It seems their reporting is motivated by ideology instead.
So I ask again, has ideology over-written journalistic ethics in the American mainstream media?
I am saddened to see some slanted and misguided answers here. One should wonder why an overwhelming majority of journalists in the vast majority of the mainstream media outlets are liberal. Could it have anything to do with the fact most of them are OWNED by far left kooks?
And if money making and advertising were the main goal, as some of you have suggested, wouldn’t it behoove them to follow a similar format as say Fox News? They are head and shoulders above every other major network in ratings. Yes they do lean to the right a bit, but do you think the reason they do so well is perhaps because they show BOTH sides on the issues equally? I think that’s attractive to most people looking to actually be informed. You can sit and watch MSNBC and other s like it and agree all day, as they only preach to their choir, but most people wish to be presented the facts from all sides so they can make a more educated decision and opinion.
Its whatever makes them money. And how do they make money? Ad revenues, sales from more people watching. So they need loyal viewership. How do you get loyal viewership. Cater to your target audience and stay with it. NBC don’t go out there and say "we want to promote liberalism." They go out and ask "what can we put on TV that will get high ratings."
Media had became part of giant corporations and lately there have been shift to profit oriented news reporting. This is different from past when they though new programs aren’t supposed to make profits.
Perceived "ideology over-written journalism" is indirect result. Its not something networks shoot for from the beginning.
Basic ethical rules for journalism course