Objectives -- Building a Code of Ethics
Today we are going to look at different scenarios that bring some of our ethical rules into play. I am going to give you a number of scenarios, and then once we discuss them, you are going to begin to create a code of ethics. This is a set or rules that is specific to this news room, one that all the student journalists in this room agree to follow when they are creating stories.
Pt. 1 -- Dilemmas,
Rush to Judgement; Libel, Slander
Pt. 2 -- Conflict of interest
Conglomerates,
Pt. 3 -- Private figures, public figures, privacy, right to know, desire to know
Questions for the audience
Today
1. Who do you serve as a student journalist? When you write stories, who do you write for? (There can be more than one answer.)
You interview and photograph sources -- people who give you information.
2. What do you owe your sources?
3. Let's say they provide you with confidential information that lets you expose a scandal or crimes that are being committed. They ask you not to name them in exchange for the information. (To make them a confidential or unnamed source.)
Do you and should you agree to this arrangement?
4. What if the person giving you the confidential information has or is committing the crime you are exposing themselves? Do you agree to the arrangement in this case?
5. What if your source has not involved in the scandal or in the crime, but works with the people or at the company that is involved and stole company records that help you tell the story. You receive an anonymous call one evening telling you that a box has been left on your doorstep and you find the stolen documents in the box.
Do you use them? Why or why not? Are you committing a crime by using them?
6. If the company sues your newspaper or web site for using their stolen documents in this story and asks you to return them and to not publish any stories, do you have to have to stop? Do you think the court will find in your favor or the companies?
New York Times vs. the United States (1971) The Pentagon Papers Case
Facts of the case. Classified government documents detailing secret wars and campaigns carried out the the US military and intelligence in the '50s and '60s were stolen and given to the New York Times and the Washington Post, which printed the information. Then President Richard Nixon had his attorney general sue the papers claiming they were harming national security by publishing the information.
The Supreme Court ruled that the 1st Amendment protected the papers' right to publish the documents.
Today: Edward Snowden and the NSA Scandal.
Here are some basic facts to research.
7. Who is Edward Snowden?
8. Who did he work for?
9. What information or programs did he disclose?
10. What publication(s) printed the materials he obtained?
11. Do you think he was right to flee the United States?
Some people think Snowden is a hero, for exposing the illegal activity by the US government, specifically the NSA. Some people think he is reckless, and is going too far, even though much of what he has released has helped the public. They are troubled that he has been living in Russian, which has a terrible record of protecting its press.
12. What do you think? How does Snowden compare to the people in the Pentagon Papers case.
Ethical standards Code of Conduct
If you got a call from another Edward Snowden type, who said he had damaging information, and you agreed to meet him to see if that information could fuel a story or a series of stories, what rules would you set for yourself before you met him?
Today we are going to look at different scenarios that bring some of our ethical rules into play. I am going to give you a number of scenarios, and then once we discuss them, you are going to begin to create a code of ethics. This is a set or rules that is specific to this news room, one that all the student journalists in this room agree to follow when they are creating stories.
Pt. 1 -- Dilemmas,
Rush to Judgement; Libel, Slander
Pt. 2 -- Conflict of interest
Conglomerates,
Pt. 3 -- Private figures, public figures, privacy, right to know, desire to know
Questions for the audience
Today
1. Who do you serve as a student journalist? When you write stories, who do you write for? (There can be more than one answer.)
You interview and photograph sources -- people who give you information.
2. What do you owe your sources?
3. Let's say they provide you with confidential information that lets you expose a scandal or crimes that are being committed. They ask you not to name them in exchange for the information. (To make them a confidential or unnamed source.)
Do you and should you agree to this arrangement?
4. What if the person giving you the confidential information has or is committing the crime you are exposing themselves? Do you agree to the arrangement in this case?
5. What if your source has not involved in the scandal or in the crime, but works with the people or at the company that is involved and stole company records that help you tell the story. You receive an anonymous call one evening telling you that a box has been left on your doorstep and you find the stolen documents in the box.
Do you use them? Why or why not? Are you committing a crime by using them?
6. If the company sues your newspaper or web site for using their stolen documents in this story and asks you to return them and to not publish any stories, do you have to have to stop? Do you think the court will find in your favor or the companies?
New York Times vs. the United States (1971) The Pentagon Papers Case
Facts of the case. Classified government documents detailing secret wars and campaigns carried out the the US military and intelligence in the '50s and '60s were stolen and given to the New York Times and the Washington Post, which printed the information. Then President Richard Nixon had his attorney general sue the papers claiming they were harming national security by publishing the information.
The Supreme Court ruled that the 1st Amendment protected the papers' right to publish the documents.
Today: Edward Snowden and the NSA Scandal.
Here are some basic facts to research.
7. Who is Edward Snowden?
8. Who did he work for?
9. What information or programs did he disclose?
10. What publication(s) printed the materials he obtained?
11. Do you think he was right to flee the United States?
Some people think Snowden is a hero, for exposing the illegal activity by the US government, specifically the NSA. Some people think he is reckless, and is going too far, even though much of what he has released has helped the public. They are troubled that he has been living in Russian, which has a terrible record of protecting its press.
12. What do you think? How does Snowden compare to the people in the Pentagon Papers case.
Ethical standards Code of Conduct
If you got a call from another Edward Snowden type, who said he had damaging information, and you agreed to meet him to see if that information could fuel a story or a series of stories, what rules would you set for yourself before you met him?